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I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA* 



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THE WOODLANDS: 

OR, 

A TREATISE 

On the preparing: of ground for planting; on the planting-; on the 
cultivating; on the pruning; and on the cutting down of Forest 
Trees and Underwoods ; 

DESCRIBING 

The usual growth and size and the uses of each sort of tree, the seed 
of each, the season and manner of collecting the seed, the manner 
of preserving and of sowing it, and also the manner of managing 
the young plants until fit to plant out ; 

THE TREES 

Being arranged in Alphabetical Order, and the List of them, in- 
cluding those of America as well as those of England, and the 
English, French, and Latin name being prefixed to the direction*; 
relative to each tree respectively. 



BY WIl.I.IiSLM COBBISTT. 



i ^ ■ 

LONDON: 



PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM COBBETT, 
No. 183, FLEET-STREET. 



1825. 



DEDICATION. 



TO 

WILLIAM BUDD, Esq. 

CLERK OF THE PEACE FOR THE COUNTY OF BERKS. 

Kensingfon, \st Decemher, 1825. 

MV DEAR SlR^ 

The following work^ which relates to a sub- 
ject that has, in all the various situations of life, 
even from my boyish days, engaged my attention 
and been to me a source of delight, I dedicate to 
you, in order that my children may, when they can 
no longer hear it from their father s lips, have, what 
I hope may be, a lasting record of an expression of 
that great respect and affection that I bear you, on 
account of your numerous excellent qualities ; and 
particularly on account of your constant exertions 
in behalf of that now- suffering class, without whose 
labour there can be no trees to shade, no houses to 
lodge, no clothes to cover^ and no corn to feed us. 
Those exertions, so judicious, so im wearied, and so 
free from all ostentation, are the subject of admira- 
tion with all who have the happiness to know you; 
but, I trust, w ith no one in a higher degree than with 

Your faithful Friend 

And most obedient Servant, 

Wm. cobbett. 



PREFACE. 



1 . It will be unnecessary for me to say^ here, any 
thing about the manner, in which the divers parts 
of this work will be arranged, seeing that that has 
been so fully described in the title of the work 
itself. Nor need I say any thing about the profit 
attending the planting of trees ; because, occasions 
enough will, hereafter, offer for the doing of that ; 
and, besides, the profit depends upon the judicious 
application of the means which the planter may 
possess. I shall, therefore, here confine myself to 
a few remarks, on what appears to me to be the 
defects in all the works of this kind which I have 
ever seen. They all leave something, and some- 
thing of import mce too, untold to us. They begin 
in the middle of the subject very frequently, and 
end, as frequently, somewhere about where they 
ought to begin. Many years ago, I wished to 
know, whether I could raise Birch trees from the 
seed, I looked into two French books and into 
two English ones, without being able to learn 
a word about the matter. I then looked into the 
great book of knowledge, the Encyclopedia Bri- 
TANNiCA : there I found, in the general dictionary, 
" Birch Tree, see Betula : Botany Index." I 



PREFACE. 



hastened to Bet u la, with great eagerness ; and 
there I found, Betula, see Birch Tree." That 
was all; and this was pretty encouragement to one 
who wanted to get, from books, knowledge about 
the propagating and the rearing of trees. 

2. Some writers give you the mere botany of the 
tree; others its qualities as timber ; others tell you 
what ground it delights in ; others treat of the act 
of planting ; others of pruning and cultivation; but 
no book that I ever yet saw told me every thing 
that I ought to know, from the gathering of the 
seed, to the rearing up and the cutting down of 
the tree. 

3. This is what I shall endcavovu' to do for my 
readers in the comse of this work ; and, as I pro- 
ceed, I shall, I trust, take care, in all cases where it 
may be found necessary, to give the reasons for 
doing that which I advise to be done. Rules, w^ith- 
out reasons, have not a thousandth part of the 
weight which they have when accompanied with 
reasons. They savour of arbitrary commands, and 
are seldom received with any great degree of do- 
cility or attention. 

4. I shall begin by giving instructions for pre- 
j)aring the ground; for planting; and for culti' 
vating after planting. These instructions are ap* 
plicable to trees of all sorts ; and, therefore, they 



PREFACE. 



will properly precede the instructions relative to par- 
ticular trees. After this will come the trees in 
alphabetical order ; describing, under the head of 
each tree, the several things mentioned in the title 
of the work; so that, the attentive and diligent 
reader will, when he sees a seed upon a tree, know 
what to do with that seed, so that it may, in due 
time, become a tree. 

5. The inducements to create property by tree- 
planting are so many and so powerful, that, to the 
greater part of those who possess the means, little, I 
hope, need be said to urge them to the employing of 
those means. Occasions enough will offer for show- 
ing how quicMij the profits come. But, still there are 
some persons, who possess such means, who are well 
assured of the ultimate gain, but who are, never- 
theless, discouraged by the thought that they shall 
not live to see the actual pecuniary product of their 
undertaking, and who, according to the idea of that 
dismal moralist, Dr. Johnson, begin to think of 
dying when they are exhorted to plant a tree. Let 
all such attend to the lesson given them in La Fon- 
taine's beautiful Fable of the ^' Old Man and the 
Three Young Men," the Avise, the generous, the 
noble sentiments of which ought to be implanted in 
every human breast. 

Un octogenaire plantoit. 
Passe encor de bdtir ; mais jHanter a cet Age . 
Disoient trois jouvenceaux, en Pants du voisinage . 
Assiu'^ment il radotoit. 



PREFACE. 



Car, au nom des dieux, je vous prie, 
Quel fruit de ce labeur pouvez-vous recueillir ? 
Autant qu'un patriarche il vous faudroit vieillir. 

A quoi bou charger votre vie 
Des soins d'uu avenir qui n'cst pas fait pour vous ? 
Ne songez desormais qu'a vos erreurs passees . 
Quittez le long espoir et les vastes pens^es ; 
Tout cela ne convient qu'a nous. 
II ne convient pas k vous-memes, 
Repartit le vieillard. Tout etablissement 
Vient tard et dure peu. La main des Parques blames 
De vos jours et des miens se joue 6galement. 
Nos termes sont pareils par leur courte duree. 
Qui de nous des clarte<J de la voCite azur^e 
Doit jouir le dernier ? Est-il aucun moment 
Qui vous puisse assurer d'un second seulement ? 
Mes arriere-neveux me devronl cet ombrage : 

H6 bien ! d^fendez-vous au sage 
De se donner des soins pour le plaisir d'autrui ? 
Cela m^me est un fruit que je goilte aujourd'hui : 
J'en puis jouir demain, et quelques joui's enf oie ; 
Je puis enfin compter I'aurore 
Plus d'une fois snr vos tombeaux. 
Le vieillard eut raison: I'un des trois jouvenceaux 
Se noya des le port, allant k I'Am^rique ; 
L'autre, afiu de monter aux grandes dignit^s, 
Dans les emplois de Mars servant la r6publique, 
Par un coup imprevu vit ses jours emport^s ; 
Le troisieme toniba d'un arbre 
Que lui-m^me il voulut enter : 
Et pleur^s du vieillard, il grava sur leur marbre 
Ce que je viens de raconter. 

6. To translate tins is like an attempt to make a 
thing to resemble the Rainbow ; and, therefore, I 
beg- those who may happen not to understand 
French, to be pleased to receive, from my pen, the 
following statement of the mere prosaic meaning of 
these words of this absolutely inimitable writer^, 



PREFACE. 



who, in marks of simplicity the most pleasing that 
ever followed the movements of a pen, has, on 
numerous subjects, left, to ages unborn, philosophy 
the most profound and sentiments the most just and 
exalted. 

A MAN OF FOURSCORE was planting trees. To 
*' build might pass; but, to plant at such an age 1" 
exclaimed three young men of the neighbour- 
hood. *' Surely/' said they, "you are doaling ; 
" for, in God's name, what reward can you receive 
** for this, unless you were to live as long as one 
" of the Patriarchs ? Wliat good can there be in 
*' loading yuui life with cares about a time which 
** you are destined never to see ? Pray devote the 
*' rest of your life to thoughts on your past errors ; 
** give up distant and grand expectations : these 
become only us young men." — " They become 
" not even you," answered the Old Man. All 
** we do comes late, and is quickly gone. The pale 
** hand of fate sports equally with your days and 
•* with mine. The shortness of our lives puts us 
all on a level. Who can say which of us shall 
last behold the light of heaven ? Can any mo- 
ment of your lives secure you even a second 
"moment? My great grand-children will owe 
*' shady groves to me : And, do you blame me for 
" providing delight for others ! Why, the thought 
of this is, of itself, a reward which 1 already 
" enjoy ; I may enjoy it to-morrow, and for some 
** days after that; nay, 1 may more than once 
" even see the sun rise on your graves." The 
Old Man was right : one of the three, ambitious 
to see the New World, was drowned in the port; 
another, pursuing fame in the service of Mars, 
was suddenly stopped by an unexpected shot ; the 
third fell from a tree, on which he himself was 
putting a giafF : and the Old Man, lamenting 
their sad end, engraved on their tomb the story 
here related. 



PREFACE. 



7. I do not pretend, that, in publishing this 
work, I am actuated soldtj by a desire to promote 
public and private utility. There is the gratifica- 
tion of my own taste, the indulgence of my o^vn 
delight in talking about trees ; and there are, be- 
sides, the more ordinary motives of fame and pro- 
fit : but, I think I do myself no more than jus- 
tice, in saying, tliat the work must necessarily have 
a tendency to produce good, both public and private ; 
while it will always be a singular satisfaction to me to 
refiect, that it may tend to induce, here and there, a 
father of a family to point out to his sons and daugh- 
ters, that it is more honourable, and attended with 
more happinc^ s, to be provided with competent and 
secure fortunes by the sowing and the planting of 
trees, than by endeavouring to succeed in attaining 
that object after the manner of the base Jews and 
Jobbers, who win their half-millions by *' watching 
^' the turn of the market." 

8. I shall, throughout the work, number the para- 
[graphs, and not tJie pages ; the former being much 
the most convenient for purposes of reference : and, 
at the close, I shall give an Index, referring to the 
several matters which the work contains. 



^\M. COBBEIT, 

Kensinglon, \st December, 182'). 



THE WOODLANDS: 

OR, 

A TREATISE, &:c. 



GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS, 
RELATIVE TO TRE E . PL AN TI N G. 

Of the. sorts of ground, in lohich to plant Timber Trees 
and Underwood. 

Of the method of preparinfj the ground for planting, and 
of the expense. 

Of fencing the ground. 

Of the times of the gear, and of the weather, for planting. 

Of the age and size of the Plants, and of preparing their 
roots for planting. 

Of the method of performing the work of planting. 



OF THE SORTS OF GROUND. 

9. Under tho name of each sort of tree will be men- 
tioned the sort of ground in which it ought to be phuited, 
or in which it may be pUmtcd with a fair chance of success. 
I sliall, therefore, here, merely describe the sorts of ground 
that we commonly find in England. 1. A black mould 
with a brown mould under it, and then, at a pretty g^ood 
depth, sand, or gravel, or brick-earth, or clay, or a stone 
of some sort, 2. A reddish loose loam, with stone of some 



General Instructions. 



sort beneath it. 3. A brown loose loam, with gravel, sand, 
brick-earth, or clay or stone beneath. 4. A stiff and 
reddish loam, with large flints (yellow outside and whitish 
inside) amongst it, and with chalk, at various depths, be- 
neath. 5. A loose grey earth, fall of flints (grey outside 
and bkie inside) on a bed of chalk, not far distant. 6. A 
marley top soil with chalk beneath. 7. A marley soil with 
grey, or white, stone beneath. 8. A stiff" loam with clay 
beneath, and not far from it. 9. A loose sandy loam with 
brick-earth beneath. 10. A loose sandy loam with clear 
white sand to a great depth beneath. 11. A very light 
reddish sandy loam with red sand, or sand-stone, beneath. 
12. A black-grey shandy loam, with sand or sand-stone not 
far beneath. 13. A stiff loam, mixed with small gravel at 
top, and with clay beneath. 14. A loose grey soil, mixed 
with pebbles, at top, and a bed of gravel beneath. 15. 
Boggy ground. 16. Stift' groimd with water not far be- 
neath. 17. Water-sides. 

10. There are several other sorts of ground ; so great is, 
indeed, the variety, that it would require a volume, much 
larger than this will be, barely to give any thing api)roach- 
ing towards a full and accurate description of each. Here 
is, however, enough for any practical purpose ; for, the 
difference between any cue of the above-mentioned soils 
and any other, approaching in nature towards it, is not, as 
to its capacity for bearing trees, so great as to make the 
remarks, applicable to the former, inapplicable to the 
latter. 

PREPARING THE GROUND FOR PLANTING. 

11. How many millions have been thrown aicay in plant- 
ing ! How many thousands of plantations have, at the 
end of twenty or fifty years, made a beggarly exhibition ; 



Preparing the Ground. 



and how many of them have wholly failed ! Yet, no truth 
is more evident to my mind than this ; that no plantation 
ever failed, except from the manifest error of the pro- 
prietor. It is woise than useless to plant, unless you do 
the whole thing well ; because, instead of creating a source 
of profit and of pleasure, you create a source of loss and 
of mortification. Planters but too often have, when they 
are about to plant, the word economy on their lips; and, 
they do not treat that word fairly; for, it really means 
nothing more than management, whereas they will have it 
mean sparing in expense: and, then, they abuse it still 
further by making it mean positive sparing : so that, at 
last, they come to the conclusion, that that is the wisest 
plan which costs the least sum to the acre, without any re- 
gard to the sorts of trees or to the manner of planting 
them. 

!2. This is, at first sight, very strange ; for, when a man 
is about to sow corn, or plant cabbages, he thinks of the 
produce, as well as of the cost of sowing and planting; 
and, he expects a crop proportioned to his expense of seed, 
manure and tillage. But, it would seem, if one were to 
judge from the manner in which planting is generally 
executed, that tree - planters care nothing at all about 
the result; that they think, that, to plant is to plant, as 
to die is io die; that the manner is of very little con- 
sequence; and that, therefore, the less the plantation 
cost, the better. It is very well known, that, to spare 
manure and tillage, in the cultivation of corn, is the 
sure way to lose money. It is very well known, that it is 
better not to sow coin at all, than to do it badly. And yet 
men in general, seem wholly to forget this when they are 
planting trees. The chief cause of this strange way of 
thinking is, that the returns, from corn^sowing, are near at 



General Instructions. 



haiul, and that those from tree-planthig are distant ; but, 
though the actual pecuniary receipts from tree-planting may 
be distant; and, though they were (which is not the case) 
always very distant; still the returns, as to increase of value 
of property, are not more distant, and, indeed, not so 
distant, as those from the sowing of corn 5 for, the moment 
your trees are in the ground, your land is increased in 
value ; and, were it to be sold, would sell, in porportion to 
the worth of the plantation, for more than it would have 
sold before. If the trees have had a year or two of growth, 
that growth makes a further addition to the value of the 
land ) and so on for every year, until the trees be fit for cut- 
ting down. If, indeed, it be immediate annual income that you 
want; if you cannot afford to wait for the effects of plant- 
ing, that is a very good reason for not planting at all; but 
it is no reason for planting in what is called a cheap manner. 

13. There is another cause for this cheap planting, which 
is the more difficult to counteract as it arises out of a feel- 
ing which is almost natural to the heart of man ; namely, a 
desire to possess a great extent of plantation. Men in general 
like to talk, aye, and even to tJwik, of the number of acres 
which they have of land, or of any thing growing on land. 
Nevertheless, as it is perfectly notorious, that it is better to 
have one acre cf good crop of wheat, than a hundred acres 
of crop which does little more than equal the amount of 
the seed, why may not one acre of good plantation be worth 
more than a hundred of bad plantation ? 1 have seen more 
than a hundred acres, which was planted about twenty-five 
years before I saw it, planted with firs, birch, and other 
such things, costing, in trees and planting, about 3/. 10.^. 
an acre. So that, besides the fencing (an expensive thing), 
here was the sum of 350/. There had been no actual re- 
ceipts from it ; and the trees, if cut down and sold, would 



Preparing the Ground. 



hardly have fetched an amount equal to the expenditure 
and the interest, reckoning not a fiirtliing for the rent of 
the land. There were, in this tract, ahout seven acres of 
pretty good land in two little dells. Now, if the owner 
had phuited these with ash, or with chesnut (not to mention 
locust) at an expense of 12/. an acre, the seven acres 
would, at the time when I saw the plantation, have yielded 
him two cuttings, worth 15/. an acre the first cutting, and 
25/. an acre the second. So that here woukl, in the space 
of twenty-five years, have been (exclusive of fencing) an 
expenditure of 84/., and a receipt of 280/. And, observe, 
that, in this case, the stools, or stems, would still be ready 
to go on producing similar crops, once in ten years, for 
ages. But, then, alas ! the owner would have possessed 
nothing but a bleak heath, with a couple of little coppices 
in its dells, instead of being the lord of a " hundred acres 
of woods" ! 

14. The first thing to be done, in the making of a planta- 
tion, is to trench the ground to two feet deep at the least. 
I shall first describe the work of trenching, and afterwards 
give my reasons for the performing of it. You begin by 
marking out with a line, two feet wide, on one side or end, 
of your piece of ground. You strain your line across the 
piece of ground, two feet from the outside of the piece. 
Then the workmen chop with their spades along against 
the line. Then, they measure another two feet, and chop 
along again. When they have thus marked out a few 
trenches, they begin digging out the first trench, the earth 
of which, to the depth of two feet, they wheel away to the 
other end of the piece, to be ready there to fill up the last 
trench with. I am here supposing the ])iece of ground to 
be so small as for the wheeling of the earth not to be 
distant, and as to cause no inconvenience in taking the 



General Instructions. 

whole width at one trench. But, if the piece of ground 
hf large, it will not be worth while to carry the earth of 
the first trench away. It may be disposed of by throwing 
it back, over the ground about to be trenched. 

15. Let us suppose a piece of ground containing an 
acre, and, the rules for trenching such a piece will apply 
to a piece of any extent. It would, in such a case, even 
if tlie outsides were all straight lines, be inconvenient to 
open at once, so long a trench as would reach from one 
side to the other. The trench might be in length propor- 
tioned to the number of workmen, allowing about half a 
rod to each, so as not to crowd them too much. Suppose 
the piece of ground to be 13 rod, or perch, long, and 12 
rod wide, which piece will then contain one acre all but 4 ^z- 
rod. Let us suppose the sides to be straight, and that four 
men are to trench this piece of ground. 

16. First mark out the piece into lifts ; that is to say, 
into strips of the width that the men are to trench at a time. 
They are called lifts, because men are said to carry so much 
ground, or space, in their works of the field or garden. 
A mower, who takes a wide swarth, is said to carry more 
ground than he who takes a narrow one. Any width of 
ground that is dug, or hoed, at once going along, leaving 
the rest of the fiehl to be worked on in like manner, is, 
therefore, called a lift; and it is necessary to bear the 
word in mind. There must be some word to designate 
the thing, and this is as good as any other. 

17. The supposed piece of ground is 12 rod wide and 13 
long. Doing the work longwise there will be 6 lifts each of 
2 rod wide ; and this piece, marked out into lifts, let us 
suppose to be represented by the following lines, which are 



Preparing the Ground, 

as well placed as the thing can be done by mere printing 
materials. 



rt 


F. 


G. 


K. 


L. 


P. 


b 


c 












w 












D. 


E. 


H. 


I. 


M. 


N. 



18. Here is the piece of ground, marked out into lifts, 
each two rod wide. You begin at a, measuring two feet 
wide, and, with a line, marking out a trench across 
the lift. If you mean to be very nice about it, wheel 
the earth tliat comes out of this trench, to the end of 
the last lift, at P, in order to have it ready to fill up 
the last trench with. But, in ordinary cases, this earth 



General Instructions, 



may be disposed of as mentioned in paragraph 14. You 
have now got the trench a clean out to the depth of two 
feet. Then you take a sj)it off the top of trench h, and, 
put it, upside down, at the bottom of trench a. Then 
go on to dig out all the rest of the earth in trench b, 
and lay it in trench a, keep the sides and the ends of 
your trench perpendicular, and go down till you have 
the trench clean two feet deep in every part of it, lay- 
ing in trench a all that comes out of b; and you will 
find that the earth of trench a is now six or seven inches 
higher than the common surface of the untrenched land. 
You now proceed to trench c, and repeat the operation : 
and thus you go on, all along the lift, to the end D. But, 
before I speak of what you are to do there, I must observe, 
that the top spits of b, when flung into the bottom of o, 
ought not to be broken, but to be turned in whole ; for the 
more hollow the ground lie the better; and these spits, 
especially if they be made solid by the roots of grass, will 
have cavities amongst them at the bottom of the trench, 
which are a great benefit. It is not necessary, nor is it 
useful, to make the trenched ground smooth at top. It 
should be level; that is to say, not in heaps and holes; 
but, there is no good, but harm, in breaking it fine and 
making it smooth, especially if the weather be wet when 
the work is going on. If you have a mind to do the 
work veiy well, you will, when you have got trench a 
empty to two feet deep, dig it at the bottom of it a spit deep. 
That is to say, turn the bottom upside down a clean spit 
deep, which, if the spade be of the right length, and if the 
digger have some bacon and beer in him, will move the 
ground another foot down, and this will raise the new- 
ground another two inches. 

19. When you come to the end D, you will have a trench 



Preparing the Ground. 



open, and no earth to turn into it. Therefore, you take the 
earth of the first trench in the next lift^ at E, and wheel, 
or throw, it into that open trench, putting the top spits at 
the bottom, and so on, as before. You have now got a 
clean open trench to go on along the second lift, till you 
come to F, where you are to fill up your last open trench 
by taking the earth from the first trench at G. And thus 
you go on from G to H, from H to I, from I to K, from K 
to L, from L to M, from M to N, and from N to P, when 
all your ground will have been turned upside down to the 
depth of two feet, and when the whole piece will lie six or 
seven inches higher than it did before, 

20. But, the soil may be such, that this operation would 
turn down to the bottom whatever there is of good mould, 
and bring to the top something in which hardly any thing 
will ever strike root ; clear chalk, for instance;, or pure 
?and, or gravel, or clay fit to make pots or pipes; or some 
other hungry stuff, in which the young trees would hardly 
live, and never could grow. When this is the case, the top 
mould must still be kept at the top ; but still the trenching 
must be performed ; for the ground must be moved and 
turned, to the two feet deep. 

21. But here the method of trenching is different from 
that just described. You begin, as before, by opening the 
trench a, and disposing of the contents as mentioned in 
paragraph 1 8. But, then, you do not turn into the bottom 
of trench a the top of trench b ; you take off the top of 
trench b, a clean spit, or to the depth of the good mould, 
if that be not a spit deep. You dispose of this top mould 
of h, in the same way as of the contents of a. Now, then, you 
have a clean trench, a, two feet deep, and you have along- 
side of it, yet unmoved, all except the top mould of trench b, 

B 2 



General Instructions. 



You then take tliis remaining part of h, and turn it into 
trench a. When that is done, you will have trench h clean 
out, two feet deep ; but trench a will want its top spit. This 
you then take from the top of trench c, and, throwing it 
across Z>, place it so as to form the top of a, which is then 
complete, having been moved to two feet deep, and still 
having the good mould at the top. You then take the bottom 
part of c and turn it into b ; and then you take the top of 
w, and, throwing it across c, form with it the top or finish- 
ing of h, which, like a, will then be complete, having, like 
it, the good mould at top. Thus you go on throughout the 
whole piece of ground. The only difference between the 
labour of this method and that of the other method, is, 
that you have all the top mould to toss to an average dis- 
tance of three feet, instead of an average distance of one 
foot; and, in point of expense, this can hardly make an ad- 
dition of more than a tenth; for, when a man has earth 
upon his spade, it is, unless he be too feeble to be a trencher, 
of little consequence to him whether he toss it three feet or 
one foot, 

22. When once young trees have got root, they w^ill send 
their roots down into almost any thing that has been moved. 
Besides, though the old top does, in this case, not go to the 
bottom, that which is next to the old top goes to the bot- 
tom ; and there is, moreover, such a mixture takes place as 
produces a fermentation ; and this has great power in keep- 
ing the ground moist in dry weather, and in making it 
favourable for all sorts of plants. But it must be observed, 
that when you use this mode of trenching, which is to keep 
the top mould still at the top, the ground should be clean, 
free from grass and perennial weeds ; for these, being so 
near the top of the trenched ground, would not be killed 
by the trenching, and would be exceedingly troublesome 



Preparing the Ground. 

afterwards^ when they could be extirpated only by great 
labour. The plough and the harrow and the fire must, in 
this case, prepare the top before the trenching begins; 
but, in the other case, where the top is to go to the bottom, 
it is, for the reason before stated, rather an advantage to 
have the top spit go down in solid lumps; but if there 
be any dock, thistle, or dandelion roots, they ought to be 
carefully taken out in the trenching, for no depth of bury- 
ing will kill them. 

23. If the bottom be of clai/, of even the stiffest kind, 
and if there be plenty of manure at hand, it may do very 
well to put the top mould down to the bottom of the 
trench; but if you have not plenty of manure, the clay at 
top is bad, and young trees will be a very long while before 
they make any progress. And, as to sheer sand, or chalk, or 
sand-stone, these, if brought up to the top, will be ages 
before they become fit for planting. In short, if you can- 
not manure well, or bring up a pretty good soil from the 
bottom, you should, by all means, keej) the old top soil still 
at top. When the trees have stricken into that, their roots 
will go down into almost any soil that has been recently 
moved, but they will not strike at first in such poor and 
raw soil. This being the case, and it being also the case 
that plantations are generally made in land where the bot- 
tom is not of a good quality, it is necessary to think of the 
manner of preparing the top soil previous to trenching. 

24. If the ground, intended for that mode of trenching 
which keeps the top soil still at the top, be covered with 
grass and perennial weeds, or if it be green turf, it ought to 
be broken up with the plough, and made clean by the har- 
row, and by burning the roots of the grass and weeds, just 
the same as if about to be used as arable land. If the 



General Instructions. 



ground be covered with heath or furze (sometimes called 
goss, and sometimes ling), the heath and furze, if not worth 
any thing as fuel, and, at any rate their roots, ought to be 
grubbed up, and burnt in large heaps, at regular distances 
on the ground. The readiest way of grubbing the heath, 
is to do it by cutting off a thin turf all over the ground. 
This turf will, when dry, burn very well, and will make 
a great quantity of ashes. When the trenchers have worked 
up to one of these heaps of ashes, they spread the heap 
over the trenched ground ; so that when the whole piece is 
trenched, it will have a dressing of ashes upon it, and this 
will very materially help the young trees. 

25. 1 have spoken only of the spade, as a tool to be used 
in trenching 5 but in stony or gravelly ground, or in chalk, 
a spud, with three grains, such as they use in the hop- 
countries, would be necessary ; and, in Jsome cases, a pick- 
axe, for moving the bottom part ; for, let it always be borne 
in mind, to move the ground deep and to turn it over are 
things absolutely necessary to successful planting. 

26. There are cases, such as that of low, marshy or wet, 
grass ground, where it might answer very well to pare off 
the top in summer, and burn it, using the ashes in t!ie 
above way. For, it might be difficult to plough in sucli 
land ; and still more difficult to make the surface so clean 
as it ought to be, if it were advisable to keep the top soil at 
top, which, generally speaking, is the case, especially in 
land of this description. 

27. If there be a wet bottom, where rushes grow, there 
must be draining ; for, where rushes thrive, trees will not. 
The stagnant water must be reHM>ved by draining, or it is 
useless to plant trees. The oak, when it has got root, will 



Preparing the Ground. 



go down into tlie stiffest and sourest of clay ; but it will 
not thrive, and will hardly live, if there be stagnant water 
at bottom. Open drains, or ditches, are not much incon- 
venience in woods, where no carriage need ever go, except 
at the time of cutting down. 

28. Whether trees be placed in large plantations, or in 
clumps, or in single rows, or along by water-sides, the pre- 
paration of the ground ought to be the game; only, in the 
last two cases, there will be holes only to prepare, unless 
th© trees be to stand near to each other, and then it will 
be best to trench a ship all along, about ten feet wide. If 
in lioles, the hole ought to be not less than of ten feet dia- 
meter, if possible; for, to put a tree into a small hole is 
only putting it into a very large pot. I shall, further on, 
speak of preparing trees for avenues, which are certainly 
very beautiful things, and which, when they fail, generally 
fail from want of skill, or of care, in the planter, 

29. Now, as to the reasons for trenching ground about to 
be planted with trees, the first is, that, whenever you move 
earth, there is 'd fomentation that takes place, and this fo- 
mentation causes a division of the ground into smaller 
particles, which, as Mr. Tull has clearly shown, is the 
great use of manure. By exposing earth, long buried 
from the sun and air, you make it more fit for the food of 
plants. When loose to a good depth, it absorbs the rains 
and dews more quickly, and retains them longer. It is a 
great mistake to suppose that plants want the ground 
moved no deeper than their roots go. If this were the case, 
plants (as I have elsewhere observed) with very short roots 
might be cultivated on a brick or stone pavement with earth 
laid upon it to the thickness of a foot ; and yet, no plant will 
live and thrive in such a state; though it will do very well 



General Instructions. 



along side of the pavement, though in ground moved only 
a foot deep. The solid ground, though it has lain unmoved 
for thousands of years, is not equal in hardness to a pave- 
ment : it is still porous in a certain degree: even chalk 
admits the rains and dews ; and, where the bottom is stone, 
it has openings in it. But, the unmoved bottom, be it of 
-what nature it may, is not so good as the moved bottom 
which has had the air let into it. Then comes experience, 
which universally proclaims the great benefit of deeply 
moving the ground. Even the market-gardeners, near 
London, when they are preparing for an extrordinarily 
valuable crop, give their ground what they call a bastard- 
trenching. This is done by taking off one spit from trench 
a, for instance, and wheeling it away to the point where the 
work is to end; then digging the bottom of trench a, as 
mentioned at the close of paragraph 18; then turning in 
upon that the top spit of trench b ; then digging the bottom 
of trench b ; then turning in upon that the toj) spit of trench 
c ; and thus throughout the piece^ This moves the ground 
about 18 inches deep, and keeps the top soil still at the top. 
It costs about twice as much as plain digging ; and, we may 
be sure that it would not be done, if experience had not 
convinced these skilful men, that there was gain attending 
this additional expense. If, then, they do this for their cab- 
bages and brocoli, ought a tree planter to hesitate upon 
the subject ? 

30. The expense of trenching must necessarily differ with 
the difference in the nature of the soil ; but, on an average 
of soils, a man will trench three rod in a day ; and, 
at the present price of provisions (bread 2d. a pound 
and bacon 9d,) a man ought to earn 2s. Gd. a dav. 
This is, then, 10 J. a rod, or 71* 13,9. 4d. an acre ; or, 
reckoning to the utmost, suppose it to be 8/, Many a one 



PllfiPARING THE GROUND, 



will exclaim : why, tliat is more than the land is worth if it 
were to be sold ! And, what of that? The question is no- 
thing at all about the worth of the land ; but about the profit 
that you may make by planting it in a proper manner. The 
small worth of the land is rather an argument against you, 
unless you take it for granted, that your produce will not 
pay you ; and, if you do that, it would be better not to plant 
at all. I shall, hereafter, show, that there is hardly any land 
that it will not answer to trench, and that, too, in the very 
best manner. 

31. In order to have the trenching well and truly done, 
the best way is for the men to work bi/ the day, and not by 
the rod. Reaping, mowing, hedging, ditching, and many 
other sorts of work, is, perhaps, best done by measure, or 
by tale, or by the job. But, when the thing is not above 
board, the temptation to slight tbe work is too strong. 
" Dead men tell no tales;" and a trench is a grave. The 
colour of the ground, and poking a slick down here and 
there, will tell a pretty good judge, whether justice have 
been done you. But, these are not effectual; and, at last, 
there come accusations on one side and protestations on the 
other, neither of which make the matter much better. The 
best way is to pay the men by the day, to pay them at a 
rate that will enable them to eat two pounds of bread and 
a pound of bacon a day, and to drink two quarts of beer IS 
gallons to the bushel of malt. All these will now cost 
1.?. 5f7. a day; and, if you give 2.9. 6d. a day, the man will 
have \s. Id. left for other purposes, of which, whether he 
he married or single, there will be enough present them- 
selves to him. It is useless to set a parcel of half-starved, 
reeling creatures at work like this. They cannot move 
nimbly in laying out the lifts and the trenches. You cannot 
call up a man to run and jump, when you see hirn hardly 



General Instructions. 



able to drag bis carcase along. And, how can yon expect 
sucb a creature to lift a spit of eartb, weighing from 8 to 12 
})0unds, about six thousand times in a day ! 

32. The best, and, in the end, the cheapest way is to em- 
ploy men by t]ie day ; to have a really good and trusty man to 
icork with them (example is better than scolding) ; to see them 
begin well yourself; to visit them often ; to repeat, at evei-^y visit 
(for their memories are short), your orders as to the manner 
of doing the work, and to insist on their keeping steadily at 
work, for if men keep on, they will almost always do work 
enough. The straight back and the gossip are the great 
enemies of the progress of the labours of the field. But 
the great things of all (next after sufficient pay), are your 
own presence on, or near, the spot, and a conviction in the 
minds of the men, that you wtderstand the whole of the busi- 
ness well. If you coidd just take the spade, or spud, and 
show them a little now-and-then ; if you could do such a 
thing, it would be a great additional benefit; aiid I pledge 
my word to you, that it would do harm to neither your body 
nor your mmd. The two first fingers of my right hand 
are still somewhat bent, from having been, mo?*e than forty 
years ago, so often in close embrace with the eye of the 
spade and the handle of the hoe; but I do not find that 
this bend makes them the less fit for the use to which they 
are at present applied. What think you of a short lesson 
in the garden every day before breakfast for a month, be- 
fore your trenching begin ? This would be attended with 
one signal and most important advantage ; namely, it would, 
by the appetite it would give you, enable you to judge 
what portion of food ought to be allotted to the man who 
lifts six thousand heavy spits a day. And, as to the charac- 
ter of such an act, the Emperor of China holds the plough 
once a year ; and, besides, why should it be more degra<ling 



Preparing the Ground. 



to you to be as skilful as your gardener, than it is to be as 
skilful in the infinitely lower business of your groom, or 
your dog-feeder? However, if this manual act be too 
much to expect, let me exhort you to let your workmen be 
thoroughly convinced that you understand all the matter well. 
Let me exhort you to give simple and positive orders, and 
never, no, never, to encourage, by your hesitation, even 
your bailiff or gardener so much as to offer you advice. 

33. There is one part of this work which the owner 
ought always to attend to in person ; namely, the laying of 
tfie ground out into lifts. If the lifts be long, a line cannot 
be stretched to the whole length at once. The sticking up 
of sticks (or poles if the ground be in hills and dells) must 
be resorted to. This, if set about in the right manner (of 
Avhich I will speak when 1 come to planting) y is the easiest 
thing in the world; and yet, if left to workmen, they, with 
their feet and hands and tongues, will, especially if the 
ground be of uneven surface, or very irregular form, trot 
and poke and muddle and bawl about, from day-light to 
dark, in doing that badly which a head and a pair of eyes 
would cause to be done well in an hour. You should look 
at your men, when they begin trenching, and pick out two 
of the nimblest and handiest, to measure out and mark the 
trenches for some distance on. You should interfere, and 
show, or at least tell, those men how to measure, how to 
move the line, and how to make the marks by the side of 
it. This would give them a high opinion of your knowledge 
of the matter ; and this would save you all the disagreeable 
trouble of finding fault, and save you a great deal of money 
into the bargain. But, above all things, avoid asking their 
advice, and even telling them your intentions. If you do 
this, even with the foreman, they will all soon become coun- 
cillors. They will deliberate ten times a day; and those 



General Instructions. 



who deliberate know not any sense in the word obedience. 
As many hands as you like ; but only owe head, if you mean 
to avoid the mortification of seeing your object defeated, 

OF FENCING THE GROUND. 

34. In many instances there are fences already, and then 
you liavc only to keep these fences good, and, where hares 
and rabbits abound, to keep them out as completely as pos- 
sible. But it frequently happens, that a piece of raw ground 
is to be planted ; and then there nmst be a new and etTec- 
tual fence made. Suppose it to be part of a tract, on which 
cuttle and sheep are turned out. The fence must not only 
be etfcctual at first, but durable. In short, it must be a live 
fence. The fence itself is a plantation, then; and it is one 
which demands even greater care than any other ; for, if it 
be insufticient, you plant the ground without even a chance 
of success. The Jriute-thorn seldom grows well, or, at 
\ci\st, quickly, in light and poor ground, or in chalk; but, 
1 know of no ground, in which it would not do well, and 
get up fpiickly, if well planted and well managed. The 
usual way, in cases such as that here supposed, is, to throw 
up a Ixuik on the edge of the enclosed land. Thus the base 
of the bank is the solid ground. Upon this solid ground 
comes the top mould from the ditch. The top of the bank 
is composed of the earth from the bottom of the ditcli, 
which is the very worst earth to be found on the spot ; and 
in this earth, laid in a shape never to suck in a drop of wet, 
and to be dried and baked through and through, the hedge 
of small quicks is planted, and there left to carry on, single- 
handed, a contest against the combined forces of docks, 
thistles, and the coarsest kinds of grass. At the end of five 
or six years the mortified owner sees here and there a wlnte- 
thorn alive ; and he ought to bless his stars that he can see 
even these. 



Fencing. 



35. Now, in the first place, when tlie outsides of the 
ground are marked out, the ground where the banlv is to 
he ought to be trenched, agreeably to the foregoing direc- 
tions, keeping the old top soil still at top. Then the top 
soil of the ditch, five or six feet wide, ought to be laid upon 
this trenched ground, making a bank three feet wide at 
top, and level there, in order that it may hold some water 
when sunk a little in the middle. This will make a bank 
full two feet above the level of the ground, because the 
trenching luider it will have raised the earth six inches at 
least. Then, in order to have the protection of a ditch, all 
the bottom of the ditch, to the depth of two and a half feet 
below the top soil, ought to be thrown out on the other side. 
This ditch itself would be nearly an effectual fence against 
cattle, sheep and pigs ; at least, it would be such for a year 
or two, until a great mouldering down took place. 

36. The bank being formed in this way, quickset (other- 
wise called whitethorn) plants, four or five years old, and 
removed previous to their last year's growth, each plant 
being as big at bottom as a man's (a labouring man's) fore- 
finger, should be planted, any time between September and 
April ; and cut down, at the time of planting, to within a 
foot of the ground. The manner of planting and of pruning 
the roots will be seen under another head. The plants 
should stand 15 inches asunder ; they should be in one row, 
and that row about a foot from the outside edge of the top 
of the bank. The ground on the top of the bank should 
slope a little, from the outside edges to the stems of the 
plants, in order for them to receive the rains at their roots. 
Through the summer, the ground on each side of them 
should be hoed, pretty deeply, and kept quite clean. These 
plants would, the first year, make long and strong shoots. 
The next spring cut them down to within an inch of the 



General Instructions. 



ground. Go over them in June, and cut ofF all tlieir shoots 
close to the stem, except the two strongest of each plant ; 
and, the ground must be poor indeed, if these do not, dur- 
ing the summer, get to be three feet high at the least. L#et 
them go on another year. These shoots will then be five 
feet high. Then, in winter, take one of the shoots of each 
|)lant, and plash it close to the bottom ; that is to say, bend 
it down longwise the hedge, and give it a cut on the upper 
Fide about two inches from the stem ; cut off the top of it 
so as to leave the remainder about a foot and a half long ; 
bend it down to the ground, making it lie as close as possi- 
ble to the stems of the neighbouring plant ; and fasten it 
to the ground with two yegs. When you have done this 
all the way along, there will be one plash for every interval 
between the stems of the plants. You must, of course, 
lay the plashes with their points all one way. When this 
is done, cut down the upright shoots to within four inches 
of the bottom. Tiie next October, that is to say, at the 
end of the fourtli summer, you will have a complete, efficient 
and beautiful fence. It will want topping and side-pruning 
in order to keep it of uniform height, and to prevent 
the top and sides from injuring the bottom shoots, by drip 
and shade. It is, of course, understood, that the hedge 
has been kept quite clear of grass and weeds all these four 
summers. 

37. Never was there a greater mistake than to suppose 
that you get a cheap hedge by using low-priced plants, or, 
that you get a close hedge by using numerous plants. As to 
the former, a yard of broad-cloth may be cheap at thirty 
shillings, while a yard of the fabric of the Cotton Lords may 
be dear at one single penny. Besides, so few plants in 
number, are wanted, according to my plan, that even the 
frst cost may be less than that occasioned by the common 



Fencing. 



method of planting quickset hedges. I shall, under the 
word Hawthorn," or " ^ fiitethorn," tvent of the manner 
of rearing the plants. Then, as to the other error ; namely, 
the supposition that a close hedge is ohtained by putting the 
plants t?eri/ wear to one another ; who ever saw^ any plants, 
of any kind, thrive, if standing so close as to struggle for 
subsistence ? Such struggle immediately begins, in a 
thickly set hedge. Some plants are stronger than others. 
The plants are much too young for you to ensure uniformiti/ 
in their size and strength, which is a great thing, and 
ought in no plantation to be overlooked. The weaker 
plants are subdued. The growth is uneven. There are 
low places. Every person and thing, wishing to cross the 
hedge, is invited to these. Gaps come ; and then the hedge 
is not worth a straw. In very good ground, this hardy 
plant will, even when thus mismanaged, get up; but, it will 
be feeble, have a big top and a hollow bottom. Whereas, 
by giving each plant 15 inches of space, you leave room 
for its roots to get food; by using /ar^e plants you secure 
uniformity of size, and, of growth. You quickly get stout 
stems; your shoots are strong; and you get an effectual 
fence in half the usual time. Suppose a hundred acres of 
land in a square form. The four sides will be, in length, 
500 rods, or thereabouts. To plant these with quicksets, 
according to my plan, takes about 6,700 plants; and, I 
have many times seen more than at the rate of 20,000 
plants to a like space. Then, they are so easily hoed and 
kept clean, when thinly planted; and (which is a thing by 
no means to be overlooked) a hare, which, in half a minute, 
snaj)s off four or five small quicks to make herself a con- 
venient promenade, is under no temptation to molest the 
large plants, which present, besides, much too tough a job 
for her to perform by way of amusement ; and, at last, 
when the plashes come to be laid down and to grow, all is 



General Instructions. 

soon too stout for her to attack; and she must wriggle 
through as well as she can. 

38. But, there must be a fence of some sort before the 
quick hedge become effectual. The kind must depend on 
local circumstances ; but, be it what it may, the best way 
of securing the Lank is to make it, if possible, in wettish 
weather ; to make it slop pretty much, so as to prevent 
crumbling down; to hang it with bushes all over; to peg 
those bushes icell down; and, at the time of making the 
bank, to sow it very thickly with the sweepings of a mea- 
dow-hay loft. These seeds, beaten in with the spade, will, 
in f-ilmost any sort of ground, make more or less of a turf 
in a short time. The bushes will keep off invaders ; and 
thus the bank will become firm. 

39. There are other sorts of plants fit for live hedges ; 
but, though I shall speak of these by-and-by, the White- 
thornh, and always must be, our great resource in this way. 

OF THE TIMES OF THE YEAR, AMD OF THE WEATHER, 
FOR PLANTING TREES. 

40. We must here, as in many other cases, yield obedience 
to circumstances. If I could have my choice; if I could 
have, in this respect, just what I pleased, I would trench 
in March, and ])lant in April. But this, except upon a very 
small scale, can hardly ever be. It is always an advantage 
to put seeds and plants into fresh-moved grouml. If of two 
cabbage plants, you put one into fresh-dug ground, and 
ihe other into ground that has been dug a considerable 
time, or only a week before, though the spots be within a 
yard of each other, you will (the plants foeing alike as to age, 



Season and Weather. 



size and condition) find the former take root and make pro- 
gress several days sooner tlian the hitter. The reason of this 
is, that, whenever the ground is moved, a fermentation takes 
place ; all its energies are put in motion ; and those ener- 
gies operate on the plant. Seed, sown in fresh- moved 
ground, will come up much quicker, than if raked into ground 
in any degree stale. 

41. However, knowing what is Lest, we must, in the case 
of extensive planting, content ourselves with coming as 
near to it as circumstances will permit us. A planter has 
not an army at his command : he must take the hands that 
the neighbourhood affords him, and must do his work when 
he can. But, the trenching ought to be done as near 
to the time of planting as circumstances will admit; and if 
you be comji^lled to trench at any considerable time before- 
harid, you ought to dig all the ground again when you 
plant. 

42. If the weather be open and dry, you may plant at 
any time between September and April; and even to the end 
of April, if you take great care as to the manner of doing it. 
Evergreens, however, should go out early in the autumn or 
late in the spring; and there are some evergreens that are 
worth great attention. 

43. Never plant in ivet weather, nor when the ground is 
ivet, if you can possibly avoid it. The ground never ought 
to be either moved, or walked upon, when it is wet at the 
top. But, we are frequently compelled to do both, or to leave 
our work wholly undone. It is a very great error to suppose, 
that plants take root quicker for being planted in wet wea- 
ther. The contrary is the fact. One great thing is, to 
make the earth that goes close to the roots ^?ie; and this 

c 



General Instructions. 



you eaiuiot do in wet weather. For this reason it is, that I 
prefer March and April as the season for doing the work of 
planting : bur, be it done at what season of tlie year it may, 
the ground ought not to be icet ; for then it falls in about the 
roots in lumps, or in a sort of flakes, Hke mortar. It never 
gets close and compact about the roots ; and if you tread 
it, it becomes, in dry weather, so hard as actually to pen up 
the roots of the tree as if they were in a vice. 

44. It is a great error to suppose that you gain time by 
autumnal or winter planting. You do, indeed, see the buds 
come out a little more early in the spring ; but it is the 
effect at the end, and not at the beginning of the summer, 
at which you ought to look. If you plant in the autumn, 
or winter, the plants get blown about for several months, 
and, in very wet weather, their stems work a sort of hole 
round themselves ; and thus the root itself is shaken ; and 
if left thus, they will, by March, be generally leaning on 
one side, with the hole open on the other side; and when 
the harsh winds of March come upon the long-time bat- 
tered ground, it will present a surface nearly as hard as a 
road. In such a case, the ground ought to be dug or 
spudded up between the trees, in March or in April ; for 
nothing can thrive well in ground thus baked, however 
good the ground may be in its nature. 

45. If you plant in the spring, you obviate all these evils. 
The ground is dry; it receives no injury from trampling ; 
it lies light, and is ready to suck in the warm rains ; it is 
easily kept clean all the summer, and you do the work in 
half the time, and, of course, at half the expense. The 
buds come out a little later, as I said before ; but they come 
out stronger, 'i'he roots have warm ground to go off in ; 
they all strike at once, and do not die in part, as those of 



Season and Weather. 



autumn or whiter planted trees frequently do; and if part 
of the roots of a tree die, the tree very rarely thrives. 

46. There is, as to the seasons and weather, some differ- 
ences, which arise from the difference in the sort of trees; 
but these, wliere they are of importance, will be men- 
tioned in the proper place. One general rule, however, is, 
that trees should not be moved, and of course, not planted, 
in time of frost. Frost dries the roots ; and, if they be- 
come very dry, they die. However, here also something 
depends on the sort of tree, and on the treatment at the 
time of planting; and, I ought to add, that I have proved 
by experience, that a little fi'ost will not Mil trees in their 
removal, whether they be large or small. In 1805, wishing 
to have a high screen at once, I bought, in a nursery at 
Brompton, some trees from twelve to twenty feet high, and 
carried them down to Botley. They were Limes, Planes, 
and Sycamores. They ^vere put on an open wagon, not co- 
vered with any thing ; I could not attend to the matter in 
person ; they were treated as unceremoniously as any equal 
number of faggots ever were ; it was in December ; a sharp 
frost came on the first evening of the journey; the w^agon 
stood out of doors all night at Farnham ; it reached Botley 
the next night; it stood out all night again, the frost still 
remaining; next day the trees were put on the ground, and 
their roots were covered with straw : there the trees now 
are, from forty to fifty feet high, and some of them, I ima- 
gine, nearly as big round as my body. This is, however, 
very adventurous work, and what no one ought to think of 
imitating. These trees were planted against a wall, in a 
very sheltered situation ; the ground, which was good and 
moist in its nature, had been trenched four feet deep, and 
had been well manured from top to bottom ; I pruned the 
roots with the greatest care ; soaked them in water twelve 

c 2 



General Instructions. 

hours; si/ted the mould into the holes about the roots; 
pressed the mould about the roots with men's hands ; and, 
finally, covered the top of the ground over witli short litter 
from the stable, which I kept there throughout the whiter, 
and laid on a fresh bed of it for the summer. With all 
these pains, these trees are now just about the height of 
some asli^ standing very uear them, the seed of which I 
saved that very year ! If I had planted trees two feet high, 
they would have hidden the w^all sooner and more effec- 
tually, and would have been ten feet higher. 

47. In 1824, 1 took up many thousands of Locusts, on the 
15th of March, in a field at Worth, in Sussex; they were 
going into Wiltshire in a wagon ; the wagon (coming for 
them) was stopped on the way by snov: ; the trees were 
taken up on a dry frosty day ; they were tied up in bundles, 
with withes, like faggots ; some fern w^as put into the bot- 
tom of the wagon; nothing was put round the roots of the 
trees; they made a large and high load, just like a load of 
faggots ; the wagon was three days and nights on the jour- 
ney back ; part of the trees were taken out, on the road, 
and left to be taken into Berkshire : I understand that they 
have all thriven exceedingly, and make very fine planta- 
tions. But, wdiile I relate these things, 1 by no means 
recommend this hazardous work ; for, though trees may be 
able to stand it, when great care is taken about the planting, 
and when the ground is very good, such treatment might 
nearly kill them, under different circumstances. 

OF THE AGE AND SIZE OF THE PLANTS, AND OF PREPARING 
THEIR ROOTS FOR PLANTING. 

48. Though I have, in paragraph 46, given an account 
of what may fairly enough be called successful planting of 



Age^ Size^ Roots^ 



old and large tree?, no man in his sober senses would think 
of doing such a thing upon a large scale, and especially for 
profit. People who are in haste to get trees round, or near, 
a house, or round a domestic enclosure, plant large trees 
for the purpose ; but, if they happen to plant small ones at 
the same time, they soon discover that the large ones are 
of no use. There is a very happy illustration of this, on the 
side of the great western road, on the left, going up the 
hill from Virginia Water towards Bagshot, in a plantation, 
made about twelve years ago. The ground was, I think, 
trenched, but, in all probability, not keeping the top soil at 
top, though the nature of the ground demanded it. There 
was a promiscuous mixture of firs and deciduous trees of a 
proper enough age and size ; and, though the latter have 
never been cut down and otherwise properly managed, 
these young trees make, all together, a show of wood ; they 
hide a six-feet paling from within, and you see some of their 
tops over it from without. But, at the same time that the 
young trees were planted, there were planted along the 
middle of the strip, or belt, a row of large trees. They were 
about ten or twelve feet high, when the plantation was 
made, and there might be about a hundred of them in all. 
They were evidently intended to be a magnificent row of 
trees, to be seen from the mansion, which is about half a 
mile back. Alas! they have, according to the vulgar saying, 
grown like a cow's tail " : they have literally grown 
downwards, till there is, I think, only two of them to be seen. 
The ground is of the eleventh sort, mentioned in paragraph 
9. Very [)oor; it lies high^ the spot is bleak. When the 
trees were planted, they were propped up by, and tied to, 
stakes. The wind and wet soon destroyed these protectors. 
The trees, in great part, died outright; and the whole of 
those that did not die, do not now make, all put together, 
a mass of wood, twigs and leaves, equal to that which is 



General Instructions. 



contained in one single locust tree (tbree or four feet high at 
the same time of planting), growing on the side of the 
porter's lodge on the very same spot. 

49. 1: this gentleman had planted all young trees ; if he 
had had all the deciduous trees of the same sort, age, and 
size ; if he had cut them down and pruned them as here- 
after to be mentioned, he would now, notwithstanding the 
poorness of the ground, have had a plantation twenty feet 
high and of uniform height ; and he would not have had 
the mortification to see his row of large trees disappear one 
at a time, and serving no other purpose (not, indeed, an 
unuseful one,) than that of teaching him not to cxj)end his 
money in the like way again. 

50. Well; but why, then, do nurserjmen, who must 
understand this matter so well, keep such large trees in 
their nurseries ? Simply because they know, from expe- 
rience, that there are people who will bui/ them ; and it is 
their business not to make plantations flourish, but to sell 
trees. You never find one of them to recommend large 
trees; I mean no one of any reputation. If they do sin a 
little too much in this way, it is in the article of fruit trees ; 
and they are not so much to blame even here ; for people 
will have the large trees : they will stick up an orchard at 
once : they will not believe, that a little young twig of a 
tree will bring them, at the end of seven years, forty times 
as many apples as a tree which has already got a stem as 
big as their wrist, and a fine branching head. They will 
not believe this ; and, therefore, the nurserymen are not to 
blame. 

51. The reason why large trees ought not to be planted 
is, that, at the end of five or six years, they, if they sncceecd 



Age, Size, Roots, 

are not so large as those which are planted when two or 
three feet liigh. This reason is quite enough. There needs 
no others and the fact may be proved by thousands of 
instances. But, if any additional reason were wanting, 
there is the shape of the tree, and its ultimate size. M'^hen 
trees are planted large, they are usually naked at bottom. 
They have stood crowded in the nursery, and have no 
branches, except near the top. In short, they are top-heavj/ 
things, with trunk and root disproportioncd to their height; 
and, to plant them is to provide yourself, at great expense, 
with a tasting store of mortification. 

52. The cause why large trees suffer so nuich from being 
moved, and that small ones do not, is, that, in the former 
case, the roots, in proportion to the size of the tree, be- 
come so much more curtailed, than they do in the latter 
case. When a tree is moved, it must, however small it m^y 
be, lose a considerable part of its roots ; and, observe, there 
is not one particle more of root than is demanded by the 
stem and the branches. A tree which is from 2 to 4 feet 
high will have roots, if traced to their utmost extent, 4 
or 5 feet long. How long, then, must those be of a tree 
which is from 10 to 12 or 14 feet high ! And what a 
violence is committed in the removal of such a tree ! If you 
could, in any case, take up a tree with every one of its 
roots unbroken, and to its utmost fibre, you must shorten 
the roots ; for, who could make a place to plant a tree with 
roots five, six, or twelve feet long ? Besides, the small hairy 
fibres die, upon the tree being moved : they never strike 
again. So that here is, in spite of all the pains that you 
can take, a great suspension of supply to the stem of the 
tree. In short, you are obliged to cut off the roots to a 
certain extent, and to take away all the fibres. The roots 
of a small tree may (as we shall see under the next head) 



General Lvstrlxtions. 



be left from 2 to 6 inches long; and you cannot very well 
leave those of a twelve feet tree more than two feet long, 
though, perhaps, they reached fourteen feet in the ground. 
It is manifestly impossible, that, with such a remnant of 
root, the trunk and branches can be sufficiently supplied, 

53. In consequence of this want of supply to the trunk 
and branches, the tree remains in a sort of stagnant state. 
The bark, for want of a sufficient flowing up of sap, be- 
comes clung to the wood, which gardeners call being hide 
hound. Buds may come out the first summer, in all the 
branches; but these buds are weak; they do not become 
shoots; the leaves are all smaller than they ought to be, 
and do not properly perform their functions; they are not 
of the right colour; all has a sickly appearance ; and a look 
at the tree in summer, tells you what you have to expect 
the next year. The spring discovers to you a part of the 
smaller branches dead at their tops, some of them dead alto- 
gether; you cut these out to get rid of the eye-sore; and 
thus a part of your tree has disappeared; it already bears 
no resemblance to that beautiful and gay and flourishing 
thing that it was, when you fell in love with it in the nur- 
seryman's ground; and you are much about in the state of 
feeling of the love-sick girl, in Mr. Monk Lewis's pretty 
song, when she saw her " gallant and jolly tar" come home 
to her longing arms, with " the loss of a leg and an arm 
and an eye." It is, it must be confessed, pretty tough con- 
stancy, that can hold its own after the roses and lilies and 
dimples have had a good digging, or ploughing, of the 
small-pox, which has, by way of doing the work well, 
closed up one eye, or turned it inside out. Yet (to the 
honour of human nature I say it), I can even believe in the 
possibility of sentiment as sublime as this, when I behold 
the fond planter of large trees retaining ail his affection 



Agk^ Size, Roots. 

for thenv while they are yearly diminishing in size and in- 
creasing in ugliness. 

54. You may move some sorts of trees, with a chance of 
success, when at a greater age and size, tlian you can, with 
such chance, move others; and there may he, now and then, 
a case, where it is uecessary to jdant hirge trees. When 
this is done, the greatest possible care should be taken not 
to bruize any part of the roots that are to remain. When a 
tree ten feet high is taken up, you ought to begin by dig- 
ging out the earth pretty deeply, at six or seven feet from 
it; and, as you approach the stem, to take special care not 
to tear or hridse the roots. The whole of the roots, as far as 
you have been able to get them out of the ground, should 
be kept on till you get the tree to the spot where it is to 
stand. Then, the hole being ready, you should, with a 
knife, kept constantly sharp, prune the roots, first taking out 
quite clean all the hairy fibres : then you shorten the main 
roots to about two feet long (if the tree be twelve or four- 
ten feet high) ; then shorten the side roots that come out 
of these, to four or six inches. Cut with a very sharp knife. 
It will, however good it may be, soon grow dull when 
employed on roots. But you must cut smooth, and not 
lear, and not leave, at your cut, any bark of the root uncut 
off, any more than you would leave the bark uncut off 
when you prune a shoot or a branch above ground ; for, if 
you do not cut clean, the amputated root, like ;\n ampu- 
tated branch, becomes diseased, and thus injnres the tree. 
The roots of such large trees should be kept out of ground 
as short a time as possible ; and by no means be exposed 
to the sun, or air, one moment longer than is absolutely 
necessary. If, by any accident, they should become dry, 
they should be laid in pond or rain water 10 or 12 hours 
before the operation of planting takes place. This softens 



General Instructions. 



the bark of the roots, and restores it to something like the 
state in which it was when in the ground, before the tree 
was moved. I shall, by-and-by, speak about the planting 
of small trees; but, as I do not wish to return to these 
large trees again, I will here add, that, before you put the 
tree in the ground, it is a good way to dip the roots in mud 
(natural or made), which will cling round the bark ; for one 
of the most essential things is, to make the earth touch closely 
every part of the bark of the roots, which it does not do, 
unless you take very great pains, first to make it JiitCy and 
next to press it closely, as you put it in. You shouUl, as 
you are putting in the earth, lift the tree a little, and jog it 
\\\) and down, that the earth may go into all the cavities, 
and closely touch the root in every part. Then, when all 
the roots are thus covered and surrounded with the earth, 
you may fill in the top with the spade, and tread it a little, 
beginning to tread at the outside of the hole, and ending at 
the stem of the tree. It is quite useless to tread at the top, 
unless you first take care of the bottom. Even with all 
these pains, a large tree will, at the end of five or six years, 
be overtaken by a small one; but without these pains, the 
large one will, nine times out of ten, produce nothing but 
mortification. 

55. In the case of plantations of any extent, no man, 
however, thinks of large trees ; and now I am to speak of 
the age and size, and of the pruning of the roots of the 
smaller ones} but, there is one particular case, in which, 
even if upon a large scale, it is absolutely necessary to plant 
large trees; that is to say, if you plant any at all. I allude 
to unenclosed lands, where the herbage belong to many 
persons, and where the timber and the right to plant trees 
belong to one; and this is an im})ortant matter, too, because 
it relates chiefly to the rearing of oaks. 



Age, Size, Roots. 

56. In such cases, the trees are, according to a fashion 
long in use, taken up when from twelve to eighteen feet 
high, and when as big round at the bottom as the wrist of 
a man six feet high, 1 am, at present, speaking of oaks 
only. The planter selects straight young oaks, which have 
come up from seed, in the woods, where they stand too thick: 
and here is a fatal error to begin with. This excess of plants 
would be a very good reason for cutting the superfluous 
trees down, and making poles, stakes, or even faggots with 
them ; but, the very worst reason in the world for choosing 
theni as plants. If you mean for any plants, even those of 
the cabbage, to be tit for transplanting, never let them 
stand thick in the seed-bed, or on any spot to which you 
have removed them from the seed-bed. The grounds of 
this precept are knov/n to every man and every woman, 
who has a garden and a porridge-pot. By remaining in 
this crowded state, all plants, of every description, become 
weak in the stem, or stalk, and top-heavy. They are said 
to draiv each other up; that is to say, they must, if they 
grow at all, push upwards. While standing thus crowded, 
they hold one another up; but, if you thin them very 
mvich, all at once, those that remain will lop, and indeed, 
their heads will, when the leaves are on, frequently bend 
down nearly* to the ground; proofs enough of which you 
will see in any oak wood, which has underwood beneath, 
and in which young oaks have been left, after the under- 
w^ood (ten or twelve years old) has been cut dovi^n. The 
young oaks grow up like the shoots of the underwood : it 
is right that the underwood should be crowded : it is not to 
produce jp/aji/c and beams: it is to produce poles and stakes 
and broom and hoe-handles and hoops and rods. 

57. Besides this drawing up, and its consequent weak- 
ness, there is the cold to be guarded against. The oak 



General In str lections. 



as a vegetable, a tender thing. The frost affects it, 
M'hen it affects hardly any other forest-tree. Its spring- 
shoots are frequently killed by the frost, when the Ash, 
the Beech, the Elm, and other trees, remain wholly un- 
affected by it. But the effect of cold upon oaks must be 
obvious to every man who has seen a thick oak wood cut 
down, leaving, here and there, a tree which has been 
thought too small for cutting. These trees never thrive 
more. They stand stunned,'' as the woodmen very pro- 
perly call it. They do not actually die; but they never 
thrive more. What, then, must be the inevitable effect of 
such a change of climate as that which is experienced by 
the young oak which is taken out of a coppice to be planted 
in an open common ? A coppice is always warm. In the 
coldest days that we know, \v hen hail and sleet cut your face, 
and when you are really pinched with the cold, go into a 
coppice, and you arc warm. In the very hardest frosts, the 
/ground is seldom frozen in, or near, the middle of a large 
and well-set coppice of six year's growth, or upwards. 
Even in that bleak and terribly cold country, New Bruns-' 
wick, where the frost comes about the 7ih of November, 
freezes the river St. John (a mile across) over in one night, 
so that men walk across in the morning; whej-e, in 
the open lands, the frost goes four feet down into the 
solid ground; even in that country, if you, in the very 
coldest weather, when, in the open air, you dare not 
venture ten yards without protecting your hands and face 
with fur; even there and then, if you go half a mile into 
the woods, you are in a mild and pleasant climate. I have, 
scores of times, gone to the edge of the woods, wrapped 
U|) in flannels and blankets and furs, and, when I got in, 
reduced my dress very nearly to an English one, and set 
to squirrel-hunting, even with my gloves off. 



Age, Size, Roots. 

58. Trees have their feelings too ; and, what must ine- 
vitably be the consequence of taking* a young oak from a 
warm coppice, and planting it on a naked common ? Plant- 
ations in these situations are useful, ornamental, and, there- 
fore, highly praiseworthy. But, then, the trees should be 
raised for the purpose ; raised and managed with a view to 
their destination. The acorns should be sown (as hereafter 
directed), the young trees should be moved twice at least ; 
and they should, at the last removal, be placed at a good 
distance from each other ; and kept pruned np to a single 
stem to the height of eight or ten feet, that being necessary 
in this sort of planting, where the boughs must be out of the 
reach even of a house. 

59. The mode of planting is this : the turfi^ taken from 
the surface of a circle about six feet over, and it ought to 
be eight, at least. The turf is laid on one side for the 
present. Then a hole is trenched, three or four feet deep ; 
and here the top mould ought to be kept at the top. Then 
the tree, with its roots ready pruned, is planted, leaving the 
bottom of the stem a foot above the level of this trenched 
gromul. Then you begin to build, with the turf, a hank 
round the hole. Then you take off the turf about fifteen 
inches wide round the outside of the bank. Then dig up 
the mould that lies under this turf, and put it into the sort 
of bowl that you are forming with your turf. This will, 
together with the turf just taken off, fill the earth up round 
the stem of the tree to six or eight inches or a foot (accord- 
ing to the height of the tree) higher than the bottom of that 
stem; that is to say, the tree Avill stand so much deeper in 
the ground than it stood before. This last is contrary to all 
ordinary rules ; but we are here speaking of no ordinary case. 
This is not merely planting trees, hut fencing them at the 
same time and by the same act. Wooden guards round 



General Instructions. 



the trees is out of the question. The cost would be a great 
deal more than the plantation could ever bring. In two 
years they nmst boil the pot, or bake the bread of somebody : 
the temptation would be absolutely irresistible. And yet, 
the trees must be protected from the croppings and the rub- 
bings of cattle, sheep and pigs. This is pretty effectually done 
by a mound of eight feet base and three feet top, and 
three feet in height; which soon gets covered with grass; 
on which cattle cannot stand ; upon which sheep and pigs 
tvill not get, because they see nothing to be gained by it; 
and, if, tempted by the grass, they do jump up, the situa- 
tion is too cramped for them to remain there for any other 
purpose than that of eating the grass, which will, in all pro- 
bability, have been eaten for them by the larger cattle ; for 
they, standing on the level ground, can do this with (as 
the newspaper fellows say of the loan-jobbers) " great ad- 
vantage to themselves and to the public also." 

60. But, this planting should be done well. The earth, 
as far as it touches the roots, should be made very Jlne ; and 
it shouUI be placed about the roots, in the manner which 
I have minutely described in paragraph 54. There is no 
difficulty in taking a cinder-sieve to the spot. To sift the 
earth in about the roots, till they be all covered closely, is 
attended with very little cost ; and, if a water-butt were 
necessary to the obtaining of mud, or grout, to dip the 
roots in, previously to planting, that would not cost much. 
And, I beg the planter, I do implore him, to bear in mind, 
that only sixpence, or even threepence, a tree, additional ex- 
j)ense, may make years of ditlerence, nay, much more than 
half difference, in the growth of the plantation. 

61. For want of the precautions here mentioned, the 
planter, at the end of two or three years, sees the heads of 



Age, SizEj Roots. 

his trees about half the size that they were of when planted ; 
he sees many of them dead ; and, at the very best, he sees 
them with dead branches, dead stumps, and with the means 
of producing rottenness of trunk already prepared. Now, 
a great deal of this loss and this great mortification would 
be obviated by the additional expense of sixpence a tree at 
the time of planting. I have shown before, in paragraph 56, 
the cause of the general failure of large trees, and of their 
necessary slowness of growth, take what pains you will, and 
however favourable your soil and situation. But here is a 
case of necessity : you must, in this case, have large trees, 
or no trees at all ; and it is desirable to have the trees; they 
are an ornament, an useful shade, a great beauty, and a great 
benefit, private and public, and the planting of them are 
amongst the noblest acts of noble-minded men. 

62. The great difficulty is, to obtain, at first, for the 
trunk and br.inches, a sufficient supply of sap from a root 
so greatly diminished. You cannot do this in any case ; not 
even in that of the youngest trees, no, nor even in a cab- 
bage or a Swedish turnip plant. All the outside leaves of 
these latter die, in a few days, and new ones, fed by the new 
roots, supply their place. So that, in the case of a large 
tree, you ought to be content if it barely live the first year 
out, take whatever pains you may. I am, when speaking, 
which I shall do very minutely, of planting and managing 
young trees, to speak of cutting them down, after planting. 
But, as I, as 1 observed before, wish not to return to large trees 
again, I shall observe here, that the large trees, thus planted, 
might be cut off, near their tops, at the time of planting. 
When large apple trees are transplanted from the nurseries 
into orchards or gardens, their branches, of which they 
usually have several, are always cut off to within six or eight 
inches of the stem. The gardeners know well that they 



General Instructions. 



must do till?, or that tlie trees will never throw out fresh 
and growing shoots. And if this he the case with all fruit 
trees, why not with forest trees ? Tiie head is left un- 
pruned, in the latter case, only because the timber- grower 
is not so anxious about success as the fruit-grower; and 
this arises from the period of expected profit being nearer 
at hand in the latter, than it is in the former. 

63. I have stated, that the objections to autumnal and 
winter planting, are, that the winds blow the trees about 
before they can take root, and that the rains batter the ground 
down, and make it, before summer, as hard as a road. Now, 
these objections do not a])ply in this case ; for the wind can 
have no power on a stout and well-fixed stem, which lias 
no branches of any length, and rains can do no harm here, 
where the surface of the mound is never to be moved again. 
In this case, therefore, autumnal planting is best; because 
the banks of the mounds get solid before the dry weather 
conies on. You will have more difficulty in getting fine earth 
about the roots; but that forms so small a part of the work, 
when the trees are comparatively so few in number, that 
it is hardly worth mentioning, when opposed to the other 
weighty considerations. 

64. Though 1 have spoken of Oals only being planted nl 
this way, trees of any sort may, and almost any sort witii a 
better chance of success as to the growth. Ash and Beech, in 
particular, and especially when the bottom soil is of chalk; 
and Elm, when it is of gravel or sand or sand-stone. If of 
stiff clay. Oak will do best. Such a plantation does not 
(llminish the quaniitij of the herbage. As much of it, if not 
more, will grow on the sides and on the top of the mound, 
as grew before on the spot where the tree has been planted. 
And, would it not be better for the Parliament to pass an 



Age, Size, Roots. 

act to compel the Bishop of Winchester, for instance, 
to plant a certain number of Oak Trees, in this manner, 
on the spot called Waltham Chase, than to permit him and 
his copyhold tenants to enclose this forest, to appropriate 
the lands, and to prevent the spot from being a forest for 
ever ? During the last session of Parliament, an Act ac- 
tually passed the House of Commons, to warrant this latter 
proceeding, which >vould have been one of the most odious 
things ever done in this world. To show what land this is 
for the growing of Oak Timber, I need only mention, that, 
a little more than twenty years ago, the late Bishop, exer- 
cising a right given him by a very old Act of Parliament, 
enclosed about twenty acres of the land, for the purpose of 
keeping out the common cattle, and thereby encouraging 
the growth of timber. I remember when these enclosures 
were made. The law allows them to remain enclosures 
for only tweuty years ; and about four years ago they were 
thrown open. I saw the enclosures made : the ground was 
bare, except that it had, here and there, a few bushes or 
bunches of heath upon it. I saw the spot in the fall of 
the year 1826, and it was covered with fine young Oak 
Trees, some of them more than twenty feet high, and many 
of them with trunks more than two feet round at the base. 
This spot is within about sixteen miles of the Dock- yard at 
Portsmouth, A turnpike-road goes through the forest to 
the edge of the harbour at Portsmouth ; and yet the House 
of Commons actually passed a law to allow the Bishop of 
Winchester and his copyhold tenants, totally to destroy 
this forest. The timber of this forest is the property of the 
See of IVinchester ; so that the Bishop (who is since dead) 
would have stripped the See of this source of riches for 
ever ) for he would have cut down all the timber, young 
as well as old, now standing in the forest ; the crown would 
have had this part of the things in its gift alienated from it 

D 



General Instructions. 



for ever ; and, into tlie bargain, more than a thousand poor 
people would have been driven from the skirts of the 
forest, to seek shelter in the filthy outskirts of towns and 
villages. I counted, as I came over the fiat of the forest, 
live hundred and seventy-two horses, cows, heifers, and 
pigs, every one of which was, I dare say, the property of 
some cottager. The ruin would have been of a character 
and extent most dreadful. I dare say that more than a 
thousand geese are reared upon the land of this forest : all 
this was to have been swept away; this most fertile garden 
for Oak Timber was to have been destroyed; saplings as 
well as timber trees were to be felled ; and the Crown was 
to have a precious part of its rights alienated for ever; and 
all this to gratify the greedy desires of a set of stupid men, 
who could not see with patience the poor have the benefit 
of even these blades of grass; and AA'ho conceived the 
brilliant idea of growing immense crops of corn upon a 
bed of sheer clay, in which Oak trees thrive most admira- 
bly, but which will not bear one bushel of wheat, until, in 
some shape or another, it has first swallowed up the value 
of two bushels. To the great honour of the House of 
Lords, they threw out the Bill, for which they deserved 
the thanks of every man of sense, and they have already 
received the blessings of the numerous cottagers, whom 
their justice and wisdom saved from utter ruin. 

65. After this digression, for which, I trust, no great 
apology will be required, I return to the subject of para- 
graph 55, to Avhich the reader will, for a moment, have 
the goodness to turn back; I there was beginning to 
give instructions, relative to the age and size, and to the 
pruning of the roots, of smaller trees. The age and the 
size may be different in different sorts of trees; and, 
as this matter will be spoken of under the head of each 



Age^ Size, Roots. 

tree respectively, I have here to offer none but general 
observations. 

66. The trees should be as young, generally speaking, as 
the nature of them will permit. In some cases, and, indeed, 
in most cases, they should be trees that have been once re- 
moved; that is to say, that have been first raised in a seed 
bed j and then put into a nursery, or plantation, in rows 
pretty close together, where they may stand for one, two, 
or three years, according to the nature of the plant, and 
according to its quickness or slowness in point of growth. 
The method of performing this work, is as follows : dig up 
the seedling trees in the month of November, or even in 
October, and, having tipped their roots with a sharp knife, 
plant them in rows about a foot or fifteen inches apart, and 
fasten them well in the ground. Some trees may stand 
closer to each other than othei's, in the row; but, in general, 
the distance of six inches, from tree to tree, may be enough. 
In this nursery, they will get new roots, which will come 
out side-ways, and will form what is called a bushy or 
shaggy root, and, in most cases, they will grow with greater 
certainty, and make greater progress in plantations, than 
when planted out at once from the seed-bed, the excep- 
tions to which rule, will be mentioned under the heads of 
the several trees. 

67. Almost every seedling tree, of great height, has a 
tap root, and, some trees, of very great length. I have 
seen a Hickory seedling, the plant itself not being more 
than six inches long, and the root more than four feet. 
Several trees make a tap root of two feet long the first 
year. These tap roots cannot be preserved in transplant- 
ing; and, if they were put into the groimd, at full length, 
with an iron bar, they would be sure to die all the way 

d2 



General Instructions. 



nearly up to the top. These tap roots must, therefore, be 
cut olF to within three or four or five inches of the plant ; 
and then the part that is left, will throw out side roots ; 
and the tree will remove well into plantations. All trees, 
however, have not such tap roots 5 the Tulip tree, for in- 
stance, and trees of low stature, very seldom have them. 
Some trees, as will hereafter be mentioned, may go at once 
out of the seed bed into plantations, and this is particu- 
larly the case with the Locust Tree, which has a fleshy root, 
and takes readily when transplanted. 

68. I have now to speak of the manner of taking trees 
up in the nursery for planting out ; of packing them for 
conveyance from one place to another, of keeping them 
waiting for the act of planting ; and of pruning their roots 
previous to planting. As to the first of these, the trees 
should be taken up with great care ; the earth should be 
dug away deeply on the sides of them ; and they should be 
taken out of the ground with their roots as whole as pos- 
sible, and with very little or wo pulling ; for, though a con- 
siderable part of the lower ends of the roots must be cut 
off, no part of them ought to be torn, for the tearing may 
extend nearly up to the plant ; and the consequences of a 
broken or torn root, are precisely similar to those of a 
broken or torn branch. A rotting takes place to some 
extent at least, and the tree will, in consequence of such 
rotting, not thrive nearly so w^ell. 

69. If trees be to be sent from one place to another, they 
ought, if the distance be such as to make it necessary for 
them to be several days out of the ground, to be packed 
up in the following manner. First, lay a mat or cloth 
upon the ground; lay some straw upon that, to the thick- 
ness of four or five inches; then lay upon the straw as 



Age, Size, Roots. 



many of the trees, as the mat will conveniently contain; 
then cover the trees with a similar thickness of straw, 
taking more care about the root than about the stem ; and 
then draw the sides and the ends of the mat over, bringing 
every part together with a very strong hand, and sew the 
package up, with twine or some other thing sufficiently 
strong. They should not be put together in this way, espe- 
cially for a long journey, if they be ivet. They should not 
be dry; but have merely the moisture which they would 
have, if taken out of the ground in dry weather; that is 
to say, weather dry over head ; for really dry weather is not 
to be expected at such season of the year. 

70. If a considerable plantation be about to be made, and 
es})ecially if the trees be to be sorted in point of size, it 
would be necessary to take up the whole, before you begin 
to plant. As fast as they are taken up and sorted, they 
should, if the plantation is to take place near the spot where 
the trees have been growing in the nursery, be what is 
called laid by the heels; that is to say, a small trench is 
made of the length required, or of a certain length accord- 
ing to the shape of the ground where the work is to be 
found, which trench is made in this manner. You dig out 
a spit or couple of spits with a spade, and lay the earth 
upon the undigged ground before you. Then, smooth this 
little bank, and smooth also the rough ground, at the bot- 
tom of the trench. When this is done, lay the trees along 
this little bank, not too thickly, for, if laid in a heap, the 
roots will mould, and if ihey mould, they are in great danger 
of never growing afterwards. If they be roots of a fleshy 
rooted tree, they will, if heaped much together, rot in a 
short space of time. They may touch one anotlier, and 
even lie two or three deep; but, if the earth do not touch 
the lohole of the roots, they are very apt to contract mould. 



General Instructions. 



if the ground be wet. When you have laid the trees along 
this little bank^ you cover the roots by digginsf another spit 
or two of ground, and thereby making a second little bank, 
for another joarcel of the trees, to be laid along in the same 
manner. A third little bank is made in the same way; 
and thus you go on until you have got the whole of your 
plants laid by the heels, in which state they will remain in 
perfect safety, if it should be necessary, from the month of 
October until the month of iVpril. There are many advan- 
tages attending this mode of proceeding : you can sort your 
trees before you begin to plant ; you can count them ; you 
•can lay them in by tens, by hundreds, or by thousands ; you 
sec what you have got; they are always ready, when you 
are ready for the work of planting : whereas, if you leave 
them in the nursery till the very moment you want them to 
plant out into plantations, you have two great works to do 
at one and the same time ; you do not know what number 
you have ; and there are all sorts of uncertainties and delays. 

71. The next thing is to give directions for the pruning 
of the roots ; and, as this is a work absolutely necessary to 
be performed, and of very great importance, I shall endea- 
vour to make my instructions on this head as plain as pos- 
sible. I spoke before, in paragraph 54, about pruning the 
roots of some trees, and observed, that roots are distin- 
guished, some by the name of roots, and others by the 
name of fibres. The fibres of trees, when once taken out 
of the ground, never grow again, but the tree, if planted 
with the fibres left on the roots, very often receives great 
injury from the moulding of the fibres. The fibres, there- 
fore, should be all taken out clean with a sharp knife. This 
is a work of great trouble, and may be dispensed with in 
Forest trees in general, but it were bettei- if it were per- 
formed as to all trees. The roots are more substantial 



Age, Size, Roots. 



tilings ; and when the tree begins to grow again, new roots 
come out of those which you leave when you transplant it. 
On the following page, I have given a Drav»ing of a young 
Apple Tree, having two shoots, and about to be planted 
again, after having been taken up. Fig. 1. represents the 
tree with all its roots and fibres, just as it came out of the 
ground. Fig. 2. represents the tree with its roots shortened. 
You will perceive, that there are no little hairy fibres left, 
and that the roots are shortened in proportion to their size. 
The growth will begin by new roots starting out of these 
shortened ones; and, these new roots will send out fresh 
fibres. This tree is pruned above, as well as below, but of 
that I shall speak more by and by. 

72. Great care must be taken not to tear or bruise the 
parts of the roots which are left 3 and they must always be 
cut with a knife that is very sharp, and that leaves nothing 
like a tear or any thing rough in the bark of the root, at the 
point where you cut it off. It is a good way, and a very 
good way, to prune the roots of all your trees, before you 
lay them by the heels ; because, they are then ready at any 
moment, when your plantation ground may be fit, and when 
the weather may serve for the work of planting. The danger 
is also less of mould; because it is the fibres that mould most, 
by intercepting the earth, and preventing it from touching 
every part. This work of root-pruning may, too, be done 
under cover, in wet weather, which will get every thing 
forward against the fine weather come ; for the act of plant- 
ing does not require more time^ and not more care, than 
the act of pruning the roots, 

73. If the tree, in the Plate just mentioned, were to be 
planted with all its roots and fibres, just as it came out of 
the ground, the fibres would all die, a great part of the 



General Instructions. 




AgEj Size, Roots. 



roots would die ; and if the tree itself did not die, it would 
certainly never thrive. You ought to cut off no root quite 
close to the stem ; but leave it to a length proportioned to 
its size, a specimen of which is pretty accurately given in 
the Plate, Once more let me impress upon the reader, the 
necessity of using a knife perfectly sharp, which is more 
difficult to be provided for in the case of roots, than in the 
case of branches or twigs. The root is a soft and sort of 
woolly substance compared to the wood of the tree ; and 
if the knife be not sharp, it» will leave part of the bark of 
the root in shape of a sort of ragged fringe coming out 
beyond the cut. This ragged bark is sure to rot, and 
it communicates rottenness, very frequently, to a great 
part of the root, and with a rotten root a tree will not 
thrive well. 

74. As to the pruning of the heads of the trees, I shall 
speak of that in my observations that will come under the 
alphabetical head; and, now, having got the young trees 
ready for planting, all that remains to be done, under this 
head of General Instructions, is to speak of the manner 
of performing the work of planting. I have already 
spoken of the sorts of ground in which to plant Timber 
Trees and Underwood ; of the method of preparing the 
ground for planting, and of the expense; of fencing the 
ground; of the times of the year, and of the weather for 
planting; of the age and size of the plants, and of pre- 
paring the roots for planting. All that remains, therefore, 
is, to speak, under this General Head, of the act or work 
of planting, and of the cultivation after planting. 



General Instructions. 



OF THE METHOD OF PERFORMING THE WORK OF 
PLANTING. 

75. It was before observed tbat the roots should be exposed 
to the open ah*, especially in dry cold weather, or dry hot 
weather, but for as short a time as possible. Therefore, wheu 
you take them to the ground^ where they are to be planted, 
they should be kept covered over with mats or cloths, or 
straw, or something that will keep their roots from the 
wind and sun. Of the distances at which trees ought to be 
planted, I shall speak under the names of the trees respec- 
tively; but all trees must have their roots ])ut into the 
ground; and, to do this well, there is but one manner. 
I have before spoken, a little, of the proper weather for 
planting; and have said, that it is a great mistake to sup- 
pose that wet weather is the best. I have shewn, in my 
Year's Residence in America, that dry weather is the best 
for the transplanting even of turnips and cabbages. It is 
the same with regard to trees, and the reasons will become 
manifest in a moment. In dry weather; that is to say, 
when the ground is not soaked with wet, the earth is fine, 
or may be broken into that state ; and the most important 
thing of all is that the earth should touch closely to every 
part of the roots of the new-planted tree; and this it cannot 
do, if it be in lumps, or if it be wet. There will be, in 
such cases, hollow places amongst the roots; and a root 
will mould and finally I'ot if not touched closely by the earth. 
Mice and other vermin will also get into the cavities ; and 
I have known a considerable part of a young orchard de- 
stroyed by such means. Therefore, the best weather is that 
which will enable you to put fine earth in about the roots. 
Let us suppose a little tree, like that which is represented 
in the plate, ready pruned for planting. The reader must 



Work of Planting. 



perceive, that the earth must be very fine to go in between 
the roots, the spaces between some of which are very small. 
To throw into the hole rough lumpy earth upon the roots 
of such a tree is not only not to do it justice, but it is to 
obtain almost an assurance of its failure. 

76, Therefore, when you have made your hole, which 
ought always to be twice as wide in every direction as the 
extreme width of the mass of root?, one man ought to hold 
the tree erect in tlie hole, the bottom ground of which 
ought to be well and finely broken with a spade, while 
another man ought to break the ground just taken out of 
the hole, so as to make it very fine, and to let it fall from 
his spade in that fine state down upon the roots, while the 
other man ought to keep shaking the tree up and down, 
that the fine earth may run into and fill up all the cavities. 
When the hole is pretty nearly filled in this way, the earth 
should be pressed gently with the foot, beginning, not close 
to the stem of the tree, but round the outside of the hole, 
and the pressure should be less and less violent as you 
approach the stem of the tree. When this is done, the tree 
is safely planted ; and you may then fill uj) the hole with 
the remainder of the earth, which was taken out of it, 
fijrming, at the close, a sort of little dish a foot or fifteen 
inches in diameter round about the tree, making the earth 
fine at the top of this dish, and taking particular pains to 
make the earth smooth, and to make it very close and 
compact round the stem of the tree. Then, the wet weather 
cannot come too soon ; but, if it should not come for 
months, even in March, April and May, the tree is safe : 
the air, dry and piercing as it may be, and the sun, scorch- 
ing as it may happen to be, will do no injury to roots pro- 
tected hy finely broken earth, which leaves no hollows for 
it to find its way through. Mr. Tull proved, by numerous 



General Instructions. 



experiments, that the way to keep ground moist was to 
make it fine ; and Mr. Curwen proA^ed, that, in the same 
field, there was dew where he had made the earth fine, 
and no dew where lie had not done it. 

77' III paragraph 54, I spoke of the manner of planting 
large trees, and recommended the dipping of the roots, 
especially if in dry weather, in mud, either natural or made, 
just hefore planting. I have always planted in April, if 
I could ; but sometimes in May ; because I prefer the dry 
and fine earth to all other things. But, in really hot 
weather, such as we sometimes have in those months, 
I have what they call grouted the trees, which word grouted 
comes from the word grout, and that, certainly, from the 
Saxon word grut, which means wet dirt. The grout is 
made by taking some water to the plantation ground, 
putting it into a large tub, flinging some earth into the tub, 
and stirring it up till it form a sort of thick mud. The 
roots of the trees are dipped into this just before they are 
planted. A little of the nuul adheres to them ; but the 
great advantage is, that the fine earth, which in such 
weather is pretty dry, clings at once closely about every 
root; sticks to all and every part of it; and, if this pre- 
caution be taken, and the rest of the work be well performed, 
no man need fear to plant a young tree in any part of the 
month of May, except, indeed, the very hard and naked 
rooted trees, such as the Oak and the Hickory. I should 
not be at all afraid to make a plantation of Locust or Ash 
in this way at any time before Midsummer. 

78. One great advantage of planting in dry weather is, 
that you do not batter the ground and make it as hard as 
a brick : when the dry weather comes, of necessity there 
must be a great deal of trampling of the ground. In pretty 



Cultivation after Planting. 

close planting it must be trampled upon pretty nearly all 
over; and if this take place in wet weather, the ground 
will become baked, and, consequently, destitute of fertility 
when the dry weather comes : there will be less dews ; and, 
in all respects whatsoever, the ground will be less fit to pro- 
mote the growth of the trees. 

OF THE CULTIVATION AFTER PLANTING. 

79. Some people imagine that trees, the roots of which 
are never seen, and that are known to go so deep into the 
ground, care nothing at all about what takes place on the 
surface of the earth. How happens it then that the Ame- 
ricans, when they find their orchards beginning to decay; 
find the trees having a great deal of dead wood coming in 
them, and find them to bear smaller fruit than usual; how 
comes it, that they, who are by no means apt to be too pro- 
digal of their labour, send the plough and harrow amongst 
the trees, and manure the land ? How comes it that an Oak 
tree, which penetrates down into the ground to a distance 
equal to that between the ground and its summit, will 
beggar, when growing by the side of a turnip-field, all the 
turnips growing within several yards of its trunk ? It is not 
its shade that does this mischief to the turnips, for it takes 
place on the south side of it as well as on the north, which 
I have witnessed in hundreds of instances, and which every 
farmer knows to be true. The trnth is, the trees draw their 
nourishment, principally, from the ground near the surface; 
and, as they pull much harder than the turnips, or any thing 
else of the herbaceous kind, their roots will have the greater 
part of the manure, put as much as yon will into the 
ground. 

80. Very erroneous, therefore, is the notion, that weeds 



General Instructions. 



and grass do trees no barm; for tliey do young trees more 
harm, perhaps, than they do to any other thing. Yet, we 
every where see gentlemen leave the young trees to take 
what care of themselves they can. They are planted, and 
are left to contend single-handed against all the battalions 
of grass of every sort, docks, thistles, dandelions, nettles, and 
all those weeds, any one plant of which sucks out more of 
the virtue of the ground than any young tree in the world ; 
and if the winter did not come in mere charity, to cut them 
down, the trees would never surpass them in height. 
Nothing can be more miserable than to see a plantation of 
young trees thus infested. The weeds draw out all the 
moisture of the ground in dry weather ; they shade the 
stems of the trees, which is a very great injury; the creep- 
ing kinds crawl up them, hamper their leaves and twigs, 
and, not unfrequently, you see the trees completely stifled 
by them. None but the hardy kinds will endure treatment 
like this for any length of time. They die, in short, in 
great proportion, and those which survive are in a mise- 
rably stunted state for many years, unless they have the 
good luck to beat the weeds, and to get the soil for their 
own use. 

81. Young trees, therefore, should be kept clean: a 
plantation ought to be kept as clean as a hop-garden; and, 
like that of the hop-garden, ought to be dug with a fork 
every winter. It is best not to dig too early; because the 
ground runs together in consequence of the quantity of the 
wet that foils upon it before the spring; late in February, 
or early in March, is time enough to dig it. The winds in 
March dry it through and through, and then the rains in 
Al)ril and May make it fine and light all the summer; easy 
to hoe, and the weeds easily kept down. 



Cultivation after Planting. 



82. I should like for some gentleman to leave a small 
part of his plantation to take its chance in the usual way, 
and to cultivate the rest in a proper manner. He would 
soon find, that his additional expense would be paid for a 
hundred fold. It is not the extent of a plantation: it is the 
height and bulk of the trees; it is the quantity of timber^ 
and not the breadth of land, that a man ought to look at. 
If trees be planted at the distance that I shall give direc- 
tions for planting them, the expense of cultivation will 
cease very soon ; foi*, in a couple of years, their roots and 
their shade together will have totally subdued the whole of 
the multifarious race of the natives of the soil. The shade 
will finish what the roots have begun; and the seeds of the 
weeds must lie in the ground and wait patiently for the 
felling of the plantation. There they will lie, however, till 
the summer sun can get at them 3 and, whenever it does, 
up they will come. 

83. Before I conclude these general remarks, I must add 
a few relative to the (piestion ; namely, whether it be proper 
to plant a mixture of trees in one and the same plantation ; 
and I have to declare my opinion decidedly in the negative. 
This is a very important matter, and merits the greatest 
attention. 

84. If the plantation be intended to be merely orna- 
mental, a mixture of trees may, according to some tastes, 
be deemed desirable ; though that is not my taste ; nothing 
appearing to me much more disagreeable to look at than 
a ragged wood, some trees without and some trees with 
leaves; some with their leaves still hanging on, but in a 
half dead state, while others are pretty nearly green. 
However, this is merely matter of taste ; I like uniformity 
of growth and of hue 3 others may like the contrary ; and 



General Instructions. 

if they do, they vAW, of course, when they seek mere orna- 
ment, ])ut different sorts of trees into the same plantation ; 
making up their minds, of course, to see some of them a 
couple of feet high, while others are thirty or forty feet high. 
But, whatever men may do when they plant for mere orna- 
ment, they ought to be a little more careful about insuring 
growth in the trees when they plant for profit, and with a 
hope that their plantations will become fortunes for their 
children. 

85. In all cases where plantations are made for the pur- 
poses of producing timber or underwood, all the trees 
onght to be of one and the same sort ; and, as nearly as pos- 
sible, of one and the same size and height, A Mr. Pontev, 
in a book which he published about planting, gave it as 
his opinion that a plantatiou ought to be composed of trees 
of various sorts; because, as he asserted, their roots had a 
variety of tastes, those of one tree liking . (or being partial 
to, as the ladies call it) one sort of diet, and those of another 
tree, another sort of diet ! He also contended that there 
were these different sorts of diet in the ground ; and that 
therefore, a Beech, a Birch, an Ash, an Elm, and an Oak, 
might all live very harmoniously together, seeing that one 
would feed greedily upon what all the rest would reject ; 
and that, thus, you might as well have ten trees as one, if 
there were, room enough for their trunks. 

86. It is truly surprising that any man should put forth 
opinions like these at the end of almost the hundred years 
that Mr.TuLL's famous work on the horse-hoeing hus- 
bandry has been within the reach of every man in England, 
and has been in the libraries of ail gentlemen in England 
who have considerable libraries, for pretty nearly a hundred 
years. This book taught the very first beginnings of the 



Cultivation after Planting. 

drill husbandry; it attracted wonderful attention in its au- 
thor's day; the Encyclopedias of late years dwell largely upon 
the Tullian system ; and yet, with the demonstrations, the 
clear and indubitable proofs, of the ' erroneousness of this 
notion before him, Mr. Pontey puts it forth as admitted 
truth. A Mr. Bradley, who had, in the time of Mr.TuLL, 
written a good deal upon husbandry and gardening, had 
ascribed to vegetables the sense of taste, by which," says 
Mr. TuLL, " lie thinks that they take such nourishment 
" as is most agreeable to their respective natures, refusing 
" the rest ; and that they will rather starve than eat that 
" which is disagreeable to their palates.'' Mr. Bradley 
had said, in few words, " they feed as differently as horses 
do from dogs, or as dogs do from fish." But, Mr. Tull 
discovers, that the same writer, in his work on gardening, 
asserts, " that Thyme, and other aromatics, being planted 
" near an Apricot tree, would in time destroy that tree." 
WHY? What reason is there for supposing that these 
little plants would destroy the tree ? It could not be their 
shade: it could not be by depriving it of even the smallest 
portion of sun or air. The rains, too, would go down to its 
roots in spite of these little creeping plants; and, as they 
are at the extreme point, with respect to difference in 
nature to an Apricot tree ; as their food ought, according 
to Mr. Bradley, to be as different from that of ^the Apricot 
as the food of horses is from that of dogs ; or, as the food of 
dogs is from that of fish : what in all the world could make 
Mr. Bradley say, that these little diminutive plants, if 
standing near an Apricot tree, would in time destroy that 
tree ? Mr. Tull might have said so, and did say so, with 
perfect consistency; for he contended, and he proved 
beyond all doubt, that the nourishment was of the same 
kind for roots of all sorts. 

E 



General Instructions. 

87. If roots of different things take different food out of 
the same ground, how is it that the roots of an Oak tree, 
or any other tree, destroy turnips or corn growing upon 
the top of the ground in which the roots of the tree are ? 
It is well known to gardeners, that to have flourishing 
wall-trees you must not plant perennial flowers, or any 
devouring plants, along the borders where they stand. 
Mr. TuLL, during his arguments upon this subject, ob- 
serves, that if plants of various sorts, fed upon nothing but 
one particular portion of the soil, and left the rest for other 
plants to feed upon, there could be very little reason for 
keeping the ground clear from weeds; for that the weeds 
being totally different in their nature from wheat, for in- 
stance, might live very happily along with the wheat; that 
they might reckon their seeds together in the same piece 
of ground, without any injury to the crop of either ! This 
absurdity was attempted to be got over by the adversaries 
of Mr. TrjLL, by saying that the weeds robbed the wheat 
of part of the air, that it would otherwise have had; that 
they shaded it more or less, either at stem or at top. To 
show the absurdity of this defence, which was, indeed, 
nothing more than a miserable shuftle, Mr. Tull pro- 
posed to leave a piece of wheat with a certain portion of 
rather tall weeds in it ; to clear another piece of equal 
extent of all weeds whatever; and then, to stick up 
amongst the wheat which had been cleared of the weeds 
little sticks or twigs, in bulk equal to the weeds in the other 
piece of wheat ; and then he ventured to pledge his life, 
that the crop in the piece of wheat having the weeds left 
in it, would not amount to more than three -fourths of the 
crops having the sticks and the twigs. None of his adver- 
saries ever accepted the challenge, and his principles re- 
mained triumphant. 



Cultivation after Planting 

88. It is quite clear^ therefore^ that all trees feed upon the 
same sort of nourishment ; and that, by planting different 
sorts of trees in the same plantation, you gaia nothing by 
this imaginary difference in their tastes. But you lose a 
great deal by mixing them in a plantation. There are no 
two sorts that keep pace exactly with each other in point 
of growth. Some sorts increase in circumference of stem, 
and mount more slowly, than others. Some go up with 
side branches, not much extended ; others spread out very 
much, and of course mount not so fast. It is impossible, 
then, that in a mixed plantation, the growth in point 
of height should be uniform ; and, if it be not uniform, some 
trees must be shaded by others. This shading soon brings 
drip along with it; and though the Hazel, the Willow, and 
some other sorts of underwood, will, to a certain extent, 
live, and grow a little under drip, even they will not thrive 
in such a situation; for who has ever seen a wood, nearly 
the whole of the ground of which was shaded with lofty 
trees, and seen at the same time and in the same ground 
a thriving underwood ? 

89. But, besides the shade arising from the inequality in 
the growth of trees, there is the inequality in the portion 
of food. One sort of tree devours a great deal more than 
another. Its roots are more numerous, larger, spread 
about to a greater extent, and actually starve trees of 
another sort standing near it. I will venture to engage 
that if a Locust tree were planted with a Lime, a Horse 
Chesnut, a Beech, and even an Elm, all planted at the 
same time, and being of the same size and height, and all 
the rest standing within two feet of the Locust tree; I will 
engage that, at the end of ten years, the Locust tree would 
have destroyed, or made next to nothing of, all the others, 
while it would be a tree of thirty or forty feet high, extend- 

E 2 



General Instructions, 



ing its branches over the tops of every one of the others, 
and leaving nothing alive of them, excepting the mere 
stumps. In the making of plantations, trees would not, 
except in particular instances, to be hereafter mentioned, 
be planted so closely, as within two feet of each other; 
but, if it were within four feet, or even six feet or more, 
the effect would be proportionately the same : the roots 
of the aspiring tree would rob those of the other trees; 
and though it might not actually extend its branches over, 
the tops of them, there would be the side shade, and all 
the injuries arising therefrom. 

90. Therefore all the trees in a plantation intended to 
produce timber, and all the plants of underwood intended 
to produce poles, hoops and the like; all the trees and 
plants, in every individual plantation, ought to be of one 
kind. This has been very judiciously attended to by Lord 
Viscount Folkestone, in some plantations of Locusts, 
which he made in the Spring of 1823 or 1824. The whole 
of his plantation of that year, consisted of perhaps thirty 
or forty acres ; but his Locusts, which he did me the 
honour to have from me, he planted in clumps, in divers 
parts of the plantation, and agreeably to my advice, at the 
distance of four feet apart, having no other trees planted 
with them. I saw these clumps in the fall of 1826, many 
of the trees being more than twenty feet high, almost all 
being pretty nearly of an equal height. The rest of the 
plantation had been made on the mixture plan. It was 
difficult to say how that would go on, for the trees had 
made comparatively little progress, while the Locusts were 
really beautiful clumps of trees, notwithstanding that they 
were no taller than the other trees, at the time of their 
being planted. 



Cultivation after Planting. 



91. Not only ought the trees, therefore, to be all of the 
same kind ; but, as nearly as possible, of the saine size and 
height J for a stout tree will get a head of a feebler one; 
it will shade it above and circumvent it beneath. If, there- 
fore (and this is always the case), your plants come out of 
your nursery of different sizes, sort them before you begin 
planting ; and plant all of the same size together. They 
will then all grow up of the same height; and though one 
part of your plantation, will perhaps be less lofty than 
another for nine or ten years, that is of very little conse- 
quence, and is not even disagreeable to the eye. 



THE TREES, 



ARRANGED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER, WITH THE INSTRUC- 
TIONS RELATIVE TO EACH. 



92. It will frequently happen^ that a tree will have to be 
called by two or more diflfereiit names. The Locust tree, 
for instance, is called the False Acacia, or Pseudo 
Acacia ; and some readers would look for the instructions 
relative to that tree, under the word Acacia, and not under 
the word Locust. Then, again, there are some trees, which 
all belong to one family, and yet that go by different names. 
For instance, there are the Abele and the Aspen; but these 
are Poplar trees; they are nothing more than different 
sorts of Poplar; and, therefore, a description of them, as 
well as every thing relating to them, will be found under 
the word Poplar. In order, however, that no incon- 
venience may arise from this arrangement, an index will be 
found at the end of the Book, and will of course be pub- 
lished with the last Number, containing all the names, that 
are, as far as I have ever heard, in any thing like common 
use. This Index will be in Alphabetical order, of course : 
the names will be the English names, followed by the Bo- 
tanical names : so that, if the reader have not been accus- 
tomed to make use of the word Locust, for instance, he will 
look for the word Acacia; and against that word he will 
find, "See Locust." If he look for Aspen, he will find 
" See Poplar.'' Amongst the American Trees, there is one 
which is commonly called Bass Wood. 1 have called this 
by the American name, but it is a Lime Tree; and the 



The Alder. 



Latin name is Tilia Americana; therefore, when the 
reader looks at the Index, for the word Lime, he will, in 
one of the instances, find " See Bass fVood." This Index 
is, therefore, a thing" of great importance, and must be 
attended to by the reader, who will otherwise experience 
great mortification. The Index is made out according to 
the commonest English and American names. The Botanical 
name is added, but 1 have not thought it necessary to make 
a Botanical Index also. Particular trees go by different 
names, in different parts of the country. I have, in every 
case, therefore, taken all the common names that I have 
ever heard of ; and if the reader do not find the name of 
any tree that he wants to read about, in the part of the 
book where he would expect to find it; for instance, if he 
do not find the Aspen Tree in that part of the book where 
the Alphabetical order would induce him to expect to find 
it ; let him then turn to the Index, there he will find, 
"Aspen. See Poplar," Having given this explanation,! now 
proceed to take the trees one after the other. According to 
the Alphabet, Abele would be the first and Acacia the 
second ; but, as the first of these will come in its proper 
place, under the word Poplar ; and as the second will 
come in its place, under the word Locust, I begin my 
observations and instructions with the Alder. 

In Latin, Alni^s : in French, Aune. 

93. The botanical characters are:— It hath male and female flowers, at 
separate distances on the same tree ; the male flowers are collected in a cy- 
lindrical katkin, which is scaly, loose, and imbricated on every side, each 
scale havitjg; three flowers, wliich have two minute scales on the side. The 
flower is composed of three equal florets, fixed to the empalement by a single 
scale ; each floret is of one leaf, divided into four oval segments which spread 
open ; these have four small stamina, crowned by double summits. The 



The Aldkr. 

female flowers grow in a katkin,in the same manner as the male. The com- 
mon katkin is imbricated, having three scales which are every way opposite, 
fasteiieil to the central string- or axis, having two heart-shaped flowers point- 
ing toward the apex, where it is situated. They have no visible petals, but a 
short oval germen, supporting two bristly styles, which are the length of the 
scales of the empalement, and crowned with a plain stigma. It hath no peri- 
carpium, but the seeds are included in the scales of the katkin, which are 
oval and winged. 

94. There are two other descriptions of Alders in Eng- 
land, and there are several in America. But these are of 
the Frangula tribe ; their seed is in a herry, and not in a 
cone, like that of the common Alder. There is an Ameri- 
can Alder, which i?, in England, looked upon as an orna- 
mental shrub, on account of the whiteness of the under side 
of its . leaf. This is what the Americans call the Black 
Alder, the upper side of the leaf being of a very dark green. 
But, Avith these varieties this work, which must, generally 
speaking, confine itself to Forest Trees and Underwoods^ 
lias nothing to do. The common Alder of England appears 
to be precisely like that of America in all respects : it will, 
therefore, be useless to speak of any other. 

95. The ALDER : Alnus Glutinosa. That is, the Com- 
mon English Alder, is seldom suffered to grow into a timber 
tree ; but there is no doubt that it would become a timber 
tree if suffered to grow after the manner of Oaks and Elms. 
The uses to which the Alder is put do not make it necessary 
that it should grow into a large tree. It is used for poles; 
for the making of the wood part of brushes; for the 
making of clogs, pattens, and heels of shoes ; and for 
various other purposes that do not require great size in the 
wood. The wood is light and brittle, and docs not last 
long if exposed to wet. It makes but a very poor hop- 
pole, and is, in short, fit for very few uses by which it is 
exposed to the weather ; but it is of very fast growth; it 



The Aldkr. 



does for many purposes under cover; and the tree grows 
in places in which trees producing better timber will not 
grow. 

96. Like all other trees, the Alder may be raised from 
seed. It bears what is called a katkin, like the Willow, 
the Nut, and the Birch, This katkin is green, in the first 
place; it afterwards becomes brown, and it will, if suffered 
to do it, hang on the tree till the next Spring. When it is 
dry, rub it to pieces, and you will see the little flat seeds, 
each with a sort of wing to it. A single katkin contains, 
perhaps, a thousand seeds or more. The katkins need 
not, however, be rubbed to pieces, until it be time to sow 
the seeds, because the seed keeps best in the katkin. 

97. The seed of the Alder may be gathered from the tree, 
as soon as it is dry ; then made perfectly dry in the sim or be- 
fore a fire ; and then put into a bag or box and kept in a dry 
place. The time of sowing is the month of March or April; 
but as to the manner of sowing, that will be found to be 
described under the head of Birch. When the plants are 
up, manage them in the same manner as directed for the 
Birch. But there is another and more common mode of 
managing the Alder; that is to say, not to raise plants 
from seed ; but, from cuttings of about two feet long, and 
about the size of a common broom-stick. These are cut at 
any time between the months of October and March, and 
are planted, in a sloping direction, in beds or plantations, 
where they stand at about four feet apart in every direc- 
tion. But care must be taken not to leave too much of the 
cutting above ground; perhaps five or six inches are 
quite enough. Here the plants grow, sending out several 
shoots, which are all to be cut down close alter two years* 
growth, and the next shoots grow up to poles. 



The Alder. 



98. I do not believe^ that, even as underwood, the stems 
raised from cuttings are any thing like so good as those 
raised from seed ; but there is no difference in the manner 
of cultivating. If the plants be raised from seed, they 
ought, after having been one year removed from the seed- 
bed, to be put into the plantation at the same distances as 
directed for the cuttings; and, if they be planted in the 
fall of the year, they ought to be cut down within an inch 
of the ground in the next month of April. If they be not 
planted till late in the spring, it will be best not to cut 
them down until the spring following; but, cut down they 
must be, by all means, and very nearly close to the 
ground. 

99. The Alder will live, and even grow, in pretty dry 
land; but its delight is in wet, and very wet, land. It likes the 
sides of running brooks, especially w^here the water breaks 
out and steeps the land. The Alder will grow most 
luxuriantly with water constantly around it; but it thrives 
best, not in a mere swamp, but in ground that is very wet; 
and it by no means dislikes stagnant water. Hence an 
Alder plantation is generally called an Alder bed, as an 
Osier plantation is generally called an Osier bed. In such 
situations, the Alder-shoot soon becomes a pole, and a very 
straight pole too, though exceedingly brittle. It will be 
cut down, of course, of the size that is required ; but, 
generally, about ten years' growth produces poles of twenty 
feet or more in length, each with a butt of from four to six 
inches in diameter. These are cut off, as closely as possible 
to the ground, at any time between October and the middle 
of February ; because the sap is then down, and there is 
no danger of what is called bleeding, where the cut is made. 
The cut should be as smooth as possible ; and the hook, or 
the axe, should not give a downward strnke, but an upward 



The Alder. 



stroke ; for, if the cut be downwards^ it leaves a raggedness 
upon the steni^ which lets in the water to a certain extent, 
and produces rottenness and weakness. 

100. The poles being cut do\vn, should, as soon as possible, 
be not only trimmed up by taking off the brushwood or spray 
from them, but they should, with as little delay as possible, 
havetheirbark taken off. This is done in the following manner: 
you take two stakes, and drive them into the ground in 
a sloping position, so that they cross each other at a point 
distant from the ground about the height of a man's 
breast. Then fix two other stakes in like manner, at about 
ten or twelve feet distance ; you then lay the pole upon 
these two crossings of the stakes, and with what is called a 
draw-shave, you take off the main part of the bark. This 
operation is always performed upon poles of this kind before 
they are put up in the hop-gardens ; and, except by very 
slovenly people, before they are applied to any use, whether 
within doors or without. 

101. If it be desirable to have a large piece of Alder for 
any purpose, the tree should certainly be raised from the seed ; 
but there are so many other trees to produce boards and 
other w^ood for temporary uses, that the Alder can scarcely 
ever be w^anted, except for poles and for the other uses 
above mentioned. The wood is light, and it admits of a 
polish not much amiss, but it is brittle almost beyond any 
thing, and it cannot be safely trusted for more than one 
year for a hop-pole. This circumstance renders it greatly 
inferior to the Ash, and even to the Willow; but then it 
will thrive where the Ash will not grow at all ; and, in the 
same situation, it will make a pole of double the size that 
the Willow will make in the same space of time. As 
fuel, it is beyond all measure inferior to the Ash and to 



The Ash. 



every thing, as far as I can recollect, except the Poplar 
tribe; but, on the otlier hand, what it does j3roduce, it 
produces quickly, and the tree has always this great re- 
commendation, that it will thrive well in the most swampy 
places, and will, sooner and more effectually than any other 
tree, convert an ugly swamp into a good-looking planta- 
tion. When cut down, it is quickly up again, and it soon 
overtops all weeds and sedge, and every other thing that 
infests the land in which it grows. 



In Latin, Fraxinus ; in French, Frtne. 

102, The botanical characters are : it has hermaphrodite and female flowers 
on the same tree, and sometimes on different trees. The hermaphrodite flowers 
have no petals, but a small four-pointed erapalement, including two erect 
stamina, which are terminated by obloug- summits, having four furrows. In 
the centre is situated an oval compressed germen, supporting a cylindrical 
style, crowned by a bifid stigma. The germen afterwards becomes a com- 
pressed bordered fruit, shaped like a bird's tongue, having one cell inclosing 
a seed of the same form. The female flowers are the same, but have no 
stamina. 

103. This tree is, on every account, one of those which 
is of the greatest consequence. The manner, therefore, of 
raising it, ought to have particular attention bestowed upon 
it. There are several sorts of Ash, if we include, as we 
must, those of America; but, though it will be necessary 
to give so much in the way of description as shall be re- 
quired to distinguish one sort from the other; and though 
there is some difference as to the nature of the seeds of 
different sorts of Ash ; still, the manner of propagating, of 
planting, of cultivating, of pruning, and of cutting down 
and applying to use, is the same in all cases, as far as 



The Ash. 



regards the Ash. It will not, tberefore^be necessary to repeat 
what I have to say on these matters ; but to say the whole of 
it, once for all, under the head of our own native Ash, with 
which, therefore, I begin my account of this family of trees. 

104. COMMON ENGLISH ASH: FraxinusExclesior. 
It is well known that the Ash grows to a very great height, 
and that it will, if left to grow, become a very large tree. It 
is also well known, that it is a beautiful tree. Gilpin cajls it 
the Venus of the woods. It has, however, one great dis- 
advantage ; that is, that it puts on its leaves later in the 
spring, and loses them earlier in the fall, than any other 
English tree. But perhaps Gilpin was thinking of a naked 
Venus, and then, indeed, the Ash claims the pre-eminence 
in our woods. Laying aside this nonsense, however, of 
poets and painters, we have no tree of such various and 
extensive use as the Ash. It gives us boards; materials for 
making implements of husbandry; and contributes towards 
the making of tools of almost all sorts. We could not well 
have a waggon, a cart, a coach or a wheelbarrow, a plough, 
a harrow, a spade, an axe or a hammer, if we had no Ash. 
It gives us poles for our hops ; hurdle gates, wherewith to 
pen in our sheep ; and hoops for our washing-tubs ; and 
assists to supply the Irish and West Indians with hoops for 
their pork barrels and sugar hogsheads. It therefore de- 
mands our particular attention; and, from me, that atten- 
tion it shall have. It is underwood as well as timber; and 
I shall have to treat of it in both these characters. 

105. As to the soil, no tree that I know of, except the Birch, 
is so little choice as the Ash. On dry ground, on wet ground, 
on sand, on chiy, on chalk, and on almost a swamp, if it be 
not quite filled with water, the Ash will grow and thrive, if 
it have anything like fair treatment. It has another quality, 



The Ash. 



It should be turned and remixed now and then. Lying in 
this state, produces a softenuig, absolutely necessary to the 
vegetation of the seed. Mere age will not do ; for I re- 
member keeping some Ash seeds in dry sand, which came 
up, indeed, after they were sown, but which lay in the 
ground another year before they came up. If kept dry, I 
think it likely that seed w^ould remain good for, perhaps, 
fifty years; but it will needs have one clear year to soften 
in, before it come up. 

108. But you must take care not to be too late in sowing 
the seeds, in the second year of their age; for, if you have 
kept them moist, they will begin to start by the month of 
March, or before : so that the safe way is to sow them in 
the month of November, just about one year after you have 
taken them from the tree. The manner of sow^ing is this : 
the ground should be as good as any that you have got; 
it should be dug deeply; it should be manured a little, if 
you have any manure to spare; and when the whole of 
your piece of ground is dug, you ought to proceed in the 
sowing in the manner which I shall here very fully de- 
scribe, because it is precisely in the same manner that the 
seeds of many, and indeed of most, other forest trees, ought 
to be sown. This one set of instructions will serve for tlie 
sowing of so many sorts of trees, that I must request the 
reader's particular attention to it. 

109. The piece of ground having been duly prepared, 
you make a straight line on one end, or one side of it, and 
begin to lay it out into beds of three feet wide, with alleys 
of fifteen inches wide ; that is to say, such an alley between 
every two beds. In order to do this with regularity and 
facility, you provide two straight sticks, each of them four 
feet three inches long, and you cut a notch round each of 



The Ash. 

them at fifteen inches distance from one of its ends. Two 
men do the work, one at one end of the line and the other 
at the other. Having made a straight line on the outside, 
hy chopping along with the spade, they suffer the line to 
stand there till they have laid down their sticks, one at the 
one end of the line and the other at the other, perpendi- 
cular from the line. Then they take up the line, and 
place it on the ground again, so as to come over the notch at 
three feet from the point where the line lay before. They 
then begin to mark out the alley by treading the ground 
along by the side of the line. Having done this, they take 
their spades and mark the alley more distinctly, by a little 
chop made along by the side of the line, and by drawing a 
little of the ground into the alley. They then (the sticks 
having lain on the ground all the while) move the line, so as 
to make it come to the end of the two sticks. They then 
tread and chop as they did before, in order to mark this 
other side of the alley. Thus they have marked out a bed 
three feet wide, and an alley fifteen inches wide. When 
they have done this, they, before they move the line, move 
their sticks, laying the three-feet ends of them to touch the 
line, as they did before. They then move the line, place 
it over the notches of the stick, as before directed, and then 
they proceed to tread and to chop, and thus to form a 
second alley and a second bed. 

110. In this manner they proceed, till the whole of the 
ground is laid out in beds and alleys. These large spaces 
of fifteen inches wide for each alley may, to some persons, 
appear to be a waste of ground; but, whoever has had 
much experience in the matter, must know that less space 
is not sufficient. The earth has to be taken out of the 
alleys, for the purpose of covering the seeds. The sides of 
the alley cannot be perpendicular, without leaving the 

F 



The Ash. 

earth to crumble down. The alley, therefore, will become 
narrower than fifteen inches 5 and, as to the beds, they can- 
not be weeded if wider than three feet, without being tram- 
pled on by feet, or being pressed by hands not much less 
injurious than the feet. In short, nothing, in a case like 
this, is so cheap as the ground. It ought not to be spared, 
after you have been at the pains, and at the expense, of pre- 
paring the seeds to sow in it. 

111. After all the ground is laid out into beds and alleys, 
the beds ought to be broken fine with the spade, or with the 
rake; stones, bones, chips, every hard and rough sub- 
stance, ought to be taken off ; and if the ground have not 
been broken very fine in the digging, it ought to be well 
broken now, before the sowing begin. When this is well 
done, the sowing may begin; and it is executed in the fol- 
lowing manner : the mixture of seeds and sand is taken 
to the ground. The sower, furnished with a bowl or a 
basket that he can take in his arm, goes along the alleys, 
and drops the mixture upon the beds in such a way as that 
the seeds may lie one of them in every square inch, or there- 
abouts. It is not necessary to be very nice : if there be 
here and there too wide a vacancy, or if the seeds lie now 
and then upon one another, it is of very little consequence; 
for if sound and well kept, and of due age, they will every 
one of them grow, and will be up and bespangle the ground 
with beautiful seed leaves in the month of April, or early 
in May. 

1 12. The seed lying thus scattered upon the beds, is next 
to he covered, two inches thick, by taking the necessary quan- 
tity of earth out of the alleys. The man who does the work, 
throws up, as he goes along, earth sufficient to cover half 
of each of the beds that adjoins the alley; he breaks the 



The Ash. 

earth very finely in the alley before he lays it upon the bed; 
and when he has laid it on the bed he spreads it smoothly 
over the seed, and breaks it very finely. Even before he 
do this, it is good to go over the beds, and to pat the seed 
close down to the earth with a spade or with the head of a 
rake and, as the earth is hiid on, great care should be 
taken to break it fine and to press it down upon the seed, 
so that the seed may be well fixed in the ground, and not 
liable to be washed out by rains, heaved out by frosts, or 
dragged up by worms. This work of covering the seed 
should be executed, if possible, when it does not rain, and 
^vhen the ground is not very wet ; for, if very wet, the 
earth will cling about the spade and also about the feet of 
the workmen ; and, which is of much greater consequence, 
it will leave the ground in lumps upon the seeds 5 it will 
cause there to be cavities when the ground becomes dry ; 
the winds will be thus let in and the young plants will 
perish or be stunted. 

113. The reader will easily perceive, that, if necessary, 
ten hands instead of two, and a hundred instead of ten, 
might be employed at one and the same time on such 
a job : some shifting the line, some treading, some chop- 
ping, some breaking the earth upon the beds, some sowing 
the seed, some patting the seed down, and, finally, two 
men or more in every alley at work covering the beds. 
Those who cover the beds, must take great care not to 
break the edges of them : they ought to slope the edge 
towards the alley; tlyit is to say, to make the alley nar- 
rower at the bottom than at the top ; and by all means to 
keep the edge of the bed firm. When the whole piece is 
sowed and covered, care ought to be taken that no dogs, 
cats, pigs, or any thing else come to disturb the beds. 
I have never perceived that mice meddled with Ash seeds ; 

f2 



The Ash. 

and, therefore, it may be unnecessary to take precautions 
against them ; but, if moles appear, they shouhl be de- 
stroyed instantly, and so should mice, if they should take a 
fancy to such things ; for it is quite useless to put seed into 
the ground, and then abandon it to its fate. 

1 14. The sowing having taken place so early as Novem- 
ber, the ground will necessarily become hard before the 
month of April. It will first be battered by the rains, then 
heaved up by the frost, then battered down by the rains 
again, then dried and baked by the winds and sun of March 
and April. This will not prevent the seeds from coming 
up, for they would almost find their way through a brick ; 
but, if the ground be very stiff in its nature (and we are not 
always at liberty to choose our ground), the plants will be 
feeble, and they never Avill thrive well until this: hard 
ground be broken about them. The best way, therefore, is, 
when the winds of March have just begun to dry the 
ground, to go with an iron rake and just break the ground 
at the top, by pushing the teeth of the rake upon it from 
you, and by taking about an inch wide of ground at a time. 
This will open the ground for the seeds to come up ; and if, 
after this operation, the ground get dry, no rains will make 
it stiff and hard, and the plants will come freely up, and be 
in a beautiful state. 

115. About the middle of May, the weeds, in all their 
pernicious varieties, will begin to carry on a contest against 
your plants. If Mr. Ponty's and Dr. Bradley's doctrine 
were true ; that is to say, if the weeds did not feed upon 
the same sort of food as the Ash trees, you might save 
yourself the trouble of weeding them ; but, as this doctrine 
is false; as the weeds would soon starve your plants, which 
would perish little by little, or which would, in the follow- 



The Ash. 



ing Autumn, be such insignificant things, as to leave you 
no hope of ever making any thing of them, it is absolutely 
necessary that you keep the ground clear of weeds. This 
is done by the hands of people, going along between the 
alleys, pulling the weeds out with their hands, and cither 
putting them into baskets to carry them away, or throwing 
them down into the alleys. The former is best, but is not 
always convenient; at any rate, ALL the weeds and grass 
should be taken clean out at the first weeding. It is 
slovenly and scandalous work to take out nothing but the 
prominent weeds ; the little weed that is left will become 
a great weed in a very short time, and the sooner, because 
its seniors have been removed. Weeders, if left to them- 
selves, will always leave a stock in order to continue the 
breed, upon the same principle that mole catchers abso- 
lutely refuse you, and assign the reason at the same time, 
to catch a mole in the breeding season. The weeding 
should, therefore, be thoroughgoing work ; Jt should not 
be a partial removal of the obnoxious plants; it should not 
content itself with merely plucking out the great staring 
things, and leaving the little underling, but perhaps much 
more efficient agents in the work of mischief : the planter 
should, in short, imitate the Duke of Wellington ; that 
is to say, take out all quite clean, down to the very 
chick-weed, and not to leave any one under the name of 
lamb's lettuce, or fat lien, or any other appellation indicative 
of harmlessness ; even these apparently inoffensive things 
should be taken out, and that too, if possible, to the very 
bottom of their tap root. It may be impossible to do this 
with regard to docks, thistles, and dandelions ; but, in the 
first place, before the ground is begun to be digged, you 
should go over it, and take up all these with the greatest 
possible care, and as deep as you can ; and then the diggers 
should be made to take out, as they go on, every bit that 



The Am, 



they find of these troublesome weeds. If any still remain, 
you cannot get them up from the bottom without digging 
up your plants ; you should have a long knife, therefore, 
and cut off their tap roots to as great a depth as possible. 
This done a couple of times, will make them very feeble 
for the future, and will at any rate rid your plants of their 
company for the summer. 

116. A second weeding must take place about the latter 
end of June; and a third about the middle of August; and, 
at every weeding, treat the weeds exactly as the Duke of 
Wellington has just now (February, 1828) treated the 
faction called the Whigs. 

117. In the month of October, your plants, supposing 
your ground to be pretty good, and your management to 
have been as I have directed, will be from five to seven 
inches high; and there would be, if sown as thickly as 
they might be sown, forty thousand plants upon one single 
square rod of ground ; but, supposing there to be but ten 
thousand, you get a hundred thousand plants upon ten 
rods of ground ; and that is enough to plant forty acres of 
land, the plants as close together as it appears to be, in 
such case, advisable to plant them. Is it not surprising then, 
that any gentleman who is about to plant should decline to 
take the pains, the very small pains, the very trifling ex- 
pense necessary to secure to him such a stock of plants ? 
Ash seeds are to be gotten every where in the proper 
season. Any great country girl would get a sack of these 
seeds with nearly as great ease, and with much greater 
safety to herself, than she would fill the sack with the tear- 
ings of a hedge. The seeds for ten rod of ground could 
not, to any gentleman in the country, cost above a shilling; 
another shilling would mix the seeds with sand; five shillings 



The Ash. 



would dig the ground and sow it; another five shillings 
would be ample pay for the weeding of it ; so that^ unless a 
gentleman could talk of the rent of ten rod of ground^ while 
more than forty rods are thrown away in the kitchen garden 
of every gentleman, the whole of the cost of this one hun- 
dred thousand plants would be only twelve shillings, much 
about three halfpence a thousand ; and 1 appeal to any 
man who understands the business, for the correctness of 
all that I have here stated. 

118. Now, as to what is next to be done with these 
plants; that must depend upon circumstances. Generally 
speaking, it is desirable to remove them, and to let them 
stand in their new situation for one year or more ; but, if 
I had ground quite readi/ for planting; if it were clean, and 
especially if it were rich, I should plant out the trees at 
once; but, in other cases, it would be advisable to remove 
them into a nursery, where they may stand for one year or 
for two years, and be always ready to go into plantations. 
This work of removal from the seed bed is performed in 
the following manner; and, as I shall have frequently to 
refer to this part of my work, I must, as in the case of sow- 
ing the Ash seeds, express a hope that the reader v*'ill 
pay particular attention to the advice 1 am now about to 
offer him. 

119. The ground which is to receive these young plants 
ought to be prepared in the same manner as is described 
in paragraph 108, relative to the preparing of the ground 
for the sowing of the Ash seeds. The work ought to be 
performed at some time between October and May. May 
is rather too late; but really any time between the latter 
end of October and the beginning of May may do very well 
for these plants, which are little more difficult to take root 



The Ash. 

than a cabbage plant is. The work, however, never ought 
to be done, if you can possibly avoid it, in icet weather; 
and in the rain by no means whatever. The weather may 
become very dry before the month of May, but even that is 
a great deal better than wet weather ; nor is there any 
danger in the drought, if you take the precautions which 
I am now about to mention. 

1 20. You begin the work (after you have prepared the 
ground), by taking up the whole of your plants ; you then 
sort them into large ones and small ones, for such there 
will always be in every seed bed ; next you lay them by the 
heels* in the manner described in paragraph 70. It is 
desirable, even at this early period, to divide the large 
from the small; and, perhaps, and certainly in some cases, 
it may be advisable to divide them into three classes ; be- 
cause, if you mix them cither in the nursery or in planta- 
tions, the strong will not only preserve their mastership 
over the weak, but will go on, as is too much the case in 
the affairs of mankind, augmenting their power and op- 
pressions, in an increased proportion ; so that, at the end 
of five or six years, or, indeed, at the end of two years, one 
would scarcely believe it possible that these were all plants 
that were sown in the same beds on one and the same day. 
If classed properly, they do not injure one another; and 
therefore I strongly recommend this classification. 

121. The ground being duly prepared and the trees 
ready, you begin the work thus : you dig the ground, as 
you proceed, over again. Strain the line along the end or 
side at which you are beginning ; you make a chop along 
by the side of the line, and take out, all the way along, a 
couple of spits of earth, and fling it back over the ground, 
or wheel it to the end where you are to leave off. When 



The Asm. 



you have made the trench clear all along by the side of the 
line, to the depth necessary to receive your plants, you 
bring the plants, with their roots pruned, in the manner 
directed in paragraph 72, and place them along, with 
your hand, just to touch the line, and with the bottom of 
their roots resting upon the earth at the bottom of the 
trench, in such way that each plant may stand not quite so 
much sunk into the ground, as it was when it stood in the 
seed bed. You will see precisely how much of it was 
under ground before; and you must take great care not to 
put more of it under ground at any rate ; and the best way 
is not to put so much of it under ground by an inch iu 
depth. 

122. When you have fixed a row of plants, at about six 
inches apart, just so as to touch the line, and have crum- 
bled the earth well in about their roots, put some earth 
lightly up to them with the spade, and tread that earth up 
against them, or rather upon their roots, with your foot. 
Press it hard and firm about the roots of the plants. When 
you have done this, they will stand with the level ground 
behind them, and with a trench before them. You go on 
now as if you were continuing to dig the piece of ground 
again. You begin with your first line of spits to fill up 
that part of the trench along which the young trees are 
placed. The rows of trees ought to be about eighteen 
inches asunder; therefore, when you have dug on, for the 
distance of two feet, from the row of trees just planted, and 
have levelled the ground nicely, you remove the line, and 
place it across your piece of ground eighteen inches from the 
place where it stood before. This will leave six inches wide 
of dug ground and your trench ; but you take your spade, 
and chop down along close to the line, drawing this six 
inches of ground back towards your trench. This gives 
you the place for another row of Plants, to be placed 



The Ash. 



along against the line. You plant this row as you did the 
first: thus you go on to the end of the piece; and thus 
your plants are all in the ground 3 you have dug your 
ground all over the second time, and you leave a surface 
untouched by foot, or by any thing to make it hard. 

123. By this mode of proceeding you avoid all the tramp- 
ling that generally takes place in the performing of this 
work, and you give to your plants the best possible chance 
of success. As you will have sorted your j)lants, you will, 
of course, plant them in assortments; and, therefore, it is 
necessary to observe, that you may, if you want room, put 
the smaller sizes at four inches apart in the row, and the 
rows at fifteen inches, or a foot, apart. This, however, is 
not worth while, unless you happen to be very much 
pressed for room. It is to be recollected, however, that, 
though these plants stand on a very small space in the seed 
bed, they require room when planted out in the manner 
above described. Planted in rows, which are at eighteen 
inches apart, and at six inches from each other in the row, 
a rod will furnish room for three Inmdred and sixty-three 
plants, and an acre will furnish room for fifty -eight thou- 
sand and eighty plants : so that the hundred thousand trees, 
which, in the seed bed, occupied only ten rods of ground, 
will now occupy not much short of two acres of ground; 
that is to say, thirty-two times as much ground as they oc- 
cupied before. 

124. The plants having been thus safely put into a nur- 
sery, they remain till they be wanted to go into plantations. 
Here I liave to refer the reader to the general instructions, 
contained in the former part of this work, where I have 
(paragraph 40) treated of the seasons and of the weather 
for planting; of the age and size of the plants, and of pre- 
paring their roots for planting (paragraph 48) ; of the 



The Ash. 



method of performing the work of planting, (paragraph 
75). It will be well for the reader now to go through 
those paragraphs again : they apply to all trees, and of 
course it is useless to repeat here the observations which 
they contain. 

125. But, there is to be considered the distance, which 
plants should be planted from each other, in a plantation ; 
and, it is evident enough that different trees will recpiire 
different distances. I am now to speak then of the dis- 
tance at which I would place Ash in a plantation. If the 
plantation be made with a view to profit, which is the only 
view which I ought to suppose the planter to have, the 
trees ought to be planted at very little more, if any, than 
four feet apart in every direction. If intended for under- 
wood, as the Ash generally is, they may be planted still 
closer ; and, I have often thought, and think still, that a 
plantation of Ash, the rows only eighteen inches apart, and 
the plants not more than eight or nine inches apart in the 
row, would yield an enormous profit, if, in the first place, 
every other row were taken out, and every other plant in 
each of the remaining rows ; if these were taken out at the 
end of six or seven years, they would be hoops, and that 
too, observe of ground Ash, as the wood from these seed- 
lings is called. The rest of the trees might remain till 
they had a growth of ten years, by the end of which time, 
they would, if properly treated and in pretty good ground, 
make hop-poles of twenty-feet long. So that at the end of 
ten years from the day of planting, an acre of land would 
yield forty 'three thousand and sia;tt/ hoops, nm] fourteen thou- 
sand five hundred and twenty hop-poles. The hop-poles 
would be worth on the spot, in any part of England, two 
pounds the hundred at least 5 and, in some parts of it, pretty 
nearly, if not quite, twice that sum. That sum, however, 



The Ash. 



per hundred would make the acre of ground yield two hun- 
dred and ninety pounds in poles in the course of tlie ten 
years ; the price of the hoops varies greatly according to 
the local situation; hut, on an average, they could scarcely 
be worth less than two pounds a thousand, which makes 
eighty-seven pounds more; and, of course,' the total amount of 
the produce of one acre in the space of ten years, three 
hundred and seventy-seven pounds. The costs would consist 
of rent, taxes, fencing, cutting down, and trimming. The 
labour would very nearly be paid by the faggot wood ; and 
I have no idea of any annual expense for fencing, and for 
cultivation in the early stages of the plantation, to exceed 
four or five pounds an acre. In short, I think, I can defy 
any man to show that all the costs upon the acre, rows 
eighteen inches apart, and plants six inches apart in the 
rows, would exceed a hundred pounds in the course of the 
ten years, including every charge of every description, and 
allowing the land to be worth a rent of three or four pounds 
an acre. Here then, in the first ten years, there would be 
gain greater than can possibly be derived in the ordinary 
way in the course of four or five times ten years. 

126. But, this is not all ; for, the poles once cut down, 
there would come up from the stems another crop ; not, 
I verily believe, equal to the first ; but, probably, three 
times as great as ever was yielded by a common plantation; 
and, if the near distances of the plants should cause a tailing 
off in the rapidity of the growth, the plantation might be 
grubbed up ; tbe roots all taken out; it might have a year 
or two in turnips or other roots, and then be planted with Ash 
again. If the plantation were in a part of the country where 
hop-poles were not wanted, the poles would be wanted for 
other purposes. If let stand till they be twelve, fifteen, or 
sixteen years old, they would be fit for wheelwrights, and for 



The Ash. 



many of the numerous uses that Ash timber is applied to. 
Finally, if you choose that this acre should become a plan- 
tation of Ash trees of lofty stature, you have only, when you 
cut your poles, to leave one standing upon about every 
ten square feet; and, if these should be found to be in a few 
years time, too near to each other, you have only, in pro- 
portion as they are in danger of becoming too crowded, to 
cut part of them out. Those that remained, would subdue 
all the stems that were under them ; but still there would 
be some underwood, and though of an inferior description, 
would much more than pay all the expenses of keeping the 
plantation pruned and fenced. 

127- In whatever way, however, the plantation be made, 
and with whatever view, the plants ought to be cut down 
nearly to the ground, the next year after they have been 
planted 3 that is to say, if planted in the fall, or in the spring, 
they ought to be cut down in the succeeding spring, and in 
the month of April. If planted in the spring of this year, they 
ought to be cut down in the month of April next year 5 
and if planted in the last fall, they ought still not to be cut 
down until they would have been cut down, if they had 
been planted in the spring. In other words, and for fear of 
being misunderstood on this point, they ought to have the 
growth of one summer, before they be cut down. 

128. As to pruning, very few trees want less of it than the 
Ash, which naturally grows very straight, sends out no con- 
siderable limbs till it gets to the height of twenty or 
thirty feet, and is very little subject to rot and to grow hol- 
low, from the breaking or the tearing of its branches or 
limbs. By planting the trees close together, particularly at 
the first, you insure straightness, and also an absence of side 
shoots of any size. The plants draw each other up in a 



The Ash. 



straight forni, and, if thinned out gradually and judiciously, 
they become an uniform and most beautiful plantation. 

129. Ash Trees ought always to be felled in winter, and 
the coppices ought to be cut in the same season. The leaf 
should be entirely off, before you begin to cut ; and though 
this is a tree that comes out late into leaf, the felling and 
coppice- cutting ought be finished by the first of March at 
latest. The bark of the Ash is of no value, and therefore 
there is lio reason for cutting the tree down at the season 
when Oaks are cut; but the bark of the Ash, and, espe- 
cially of the young Ash, is, if suffered to remain on, inju- 
rious to the wood. As soon, therefore, as convenient, after 
Ash poles are cut, the bark is taken off in the same manner 
as that described in the case of the Alder; paragraph 100» 

130. I cannot conclude this article, without strongly re- 
commending to my readers to pay great attention to v/hat 
has been said about this tree. As fuel, its wood is far better 
than any other tree that we have : its growth is almost the 
quickest : its various uses are all of importance ; and its 
propagation, cultivation and management, are all nearly 
as easv as those of a cabbage plant. 

131. AMERICAN WHITE ASH: Fraxinus Ame- 
ricana. In all that I have said above, I beg to be under- 
stood as having spoken of the Ash generally, and not only of 
the English Ash, being convinced that there are other Ashes 
much superior to it, in every respect whatsoever; and, of 
course, more vrorthy of all that great attention which I 
have represented it to deserve. This is particularly the 
case, with regard to the American White Ash, which 
grows to a greater height than ours, has a more beautiful 
foliage, grows faster, and produces a timber vastly superior. 



The Ash. 



MicHAUx saySj that it sometimes attains the height of 
eighty feet, with a diameter of three feet. It abounds, he 
says, and indeed I have seen it with my own eyes, in the 
English province of New Brunswick, the centre of which 
lies about five hundred miles to the north of Boston^ in a 
country covered with snow seven months in the year, 
leaving us in no doubt at all with regard to its hardiness. 

132. This tree is frequently seen with a trunk undivided 
by any limb to the amount of forty or fifty feet. It is 
highly esteemed throughout the whole of the United 
States. It is used in America for most of the purposes for 
which our Ash is used here. A great deal of it is brought 
to England in plank; and Michaux, in his North American 
Sylva, says that Mr. Oddy, in his treatise on European 
commerce, " acknowledges it to be superior, for many pur- 
poses, to the Common European Ash.'^ 

133. If it were extremely difficult to obtain the seeds of 
this tree, I should not press it upon my readers to plant it 
in preference to the English Ash; because it is in hundreds 
of thousands that it is wanted ; but nothing can be more 
easy than to obtain the seed. The tree grows in our own 
province of New Brunswick, and also in Canada. A ship- 
load of seeds might be collected, with far less trouble than 
a ship-load of many of those things which are really of no 
use when they have been brought across the seas. 

134. There is this difference, this remarkable difference, 
between the American White Ash and our English Ash, 
namely, that the latter will have, as w^e have seen above, 
two years for its seed to come up in, and that the American 
White Ash will suffer its seed to come up the first year, 
with just as much ease as an onion or a radish seed. I have 



The Ash. 



frequently sowed the seeds of this Ash in April, and have 
had them stand as thick as they could stand upon the 
ground, though the seeds had been gathered from the tree, 
in America, in the previous month of November. I do not, 
however, recommend this practice to any one ; for the seeds 
always ought to be sown, and always may be sown, in 
February or March, which gives plenty of time for the 
bringing of them from any part of North America. 

135. That this tree grows much faster than ours, I have 
had abundant proof, and have, indeed, many thousands of 
proofs now in my possession; for the American White Ash 
plants which I have at Kensington, and which were not 
sown till last April, are now full as tall again as any of the 
English Ash of the same age that I ever saw. This, there- 
fore, is, above all others, the Ash which I recommend to be 
put into plantations in England, whether for ornament, for 
timber, or for underwood. 

136. AMERICAN BLACK ASH. Fraxinus Sambuci- 
FOLiA. Michaux tells us that this Ash rises to the height of 
sixty or seventy feet, but that it does not grow to the size of 
the White Ash. It grows in the same climate, and is used 
for pretty nearly the same purposes, but is not so much es- 
teemed. The bark of the White Ash corresponds with its 
name, and so does that of the Black Ash. The first is not, 
indeed, white, but of a pale grey colour, with a reddish 
bud j while the bark of the Black Ash has a very dingy 
hue, and while the buds are black, like those of the buds 
of our Ash. The leaves of the Black Ash are not much 
above half the size of those of the White Ash ; and there 
is this further difference between the two trees, namely, 
that the seeds of the Black Ash, like the seeds of our Ash, 
will not come up until the second year. I have some 



The Ash. 



Black Ash at this time. The seeds lay in the ground two 
years, and the plants are now about the height of those that 
come from seeds of our Common English Ash. 

137. AMERICAN RED ASH. Fraxinus Tomeinosa.-^ 
This is a tree w^hich rises to the height of sixty feet, and is 
remarkable for growing very straight. Michaux tells us, 
that the wood is used for the same purposes as those to 
which the wood of the other Ashes is applied. It is called 
Red Ash because the bark upon the trunk is of a reddish 
or deep brown colour, and because the perfect wood is, in 
the heart of it, of a bright red. Its seeds, being gatheretl 
in the autumn, and sown in the spring, come up the first 
year. 

138. AMERICAN BLUE ASH. Fraxinus Quadrangulata. 
— ^This, as an ornamental tree, is very beautiful. The bark, 
which is of a brickdust colour, or something approaching 
it, forms itself in the smaller branches into five ribs or 
angles ; and the seeds, at the butt end, where the kernels 
lie, are of a bluish colour. According to MrcHAUX, the 
Blue Ash frequently exceeds in height sixty or seventy feet, 
but is seldom of great diameter. 

139. AMERICAN GREEN ASH. Fraxinus Viridis,— 
This species of Ash differs from all the rest in the form of 
its seeds, which have no wings, as those of all the rest have. 
It is a small tree compared to any of the others, and is not 
in general seen to be above twenty-five or thirty feet high, 
with a diameter of from four to ten inches. Its name arises, 
in all probability, from the circumstance of the bark being 
of a greenish hue, while the bud is of a pale green ; and 
while the seeds have a stripe of green down the middle of 
each. This tree appears to be known little of in the colder 

G 



The Ash. 



regions ofAmericfi; but it appears to be a tree of great 
beauty, and to be well worthy the attention of those wlio 
delight in beautiful plantations. 

140. CAROLINIAN ASH. Fraxinus Platicarpa.—Thii^, 
which closes my list of Ash trees, is very distinctly charac- 
terized by the form of its seeds, which are much broader, 
and more flat than those of the seeds of any other sort of 
Ash. The leaves are much broader than even those of the 
White Ash; and the colour of its bark is of a greenish 
yellow ; but it rises to a height seldom exceeding thirty 
feet; and, though a very beautiful tree, is not, as Michaux 
tells us, esteemed like the other Ashes, for the properties 
of its wood. Its seeds come up the first year ; and it grows 
very fast while young. 

141. I have mentioned all these different sorts of the 
Ash tree, because many readers may like to be in possession 
of all of them ; but, as subjects for plantations made for 
profit, I recommend the English Ash, or the American 
Whtfe Ash by preference, when that can be obtained. In 
all cases, where you are uncertain as to whether the seeds 
will come up the first year or not, it is the best way to 
sow them in the spring of the next year, after they have 
been gathered in the preceding year. If you happen to be 
late in the season, it is a good way to steep the seeds for 
two or three days in a tub, in water poured upon the seeds 
w^hen it is pretty hot; not scalding hot, but rather hotter 
than you like to bear your hand in. Cover the tub over 
when you have put in the water; let the seeds remain 
soaking for about three days and three nights ; then sow 
them, in the manner directed for sowing the seed of the 
English Ash ; break the ground very fine over them, press 
it down upon them with great care ; and, if the weather 



The Ash. 

be dry^ and the sun hot, which sometimes happens in April, 
cover the beds over in the day-time with mats, imtil rain 
or shady weather come, or until the plants come up. 

142. An observation which relates to Ash trees in general 
is this, that the greatest care should be taken to keep 
cattle out of the young plantations, and out of coppices, 
where the young shoots are yet low. A hungry cow, or 
a hungry horse, especially the latter, would destroy an 
acre in the course of a few days. When once cropped off, 
they can yield you neither pole nor hoop. The coppice, 
if cropped all over, would yield you nothing but fagot 
wood. I therefore beg leave to press upon all those who 
have young plantations, or recently- cut coppices, the abso- 
lute necessity of keeping all sorts of cattle out of them, not 
forgetting those mischievous vermin, the rabbits, one of 
which will bark twenty, thirty, or perhaps fifty, young 
Ash trees in a night. In many cases, valuable coppices 
have been nearly totally destroyed, or at least a ten years* 
growth of them has been destroyed by the teeth of the 
rabbits and the hares, both of them fond of the bark of 
young trees in general ; and this valuable tree, the Ash, 
happens, unfortunately, to be one of their favourite 
dishes. 



THS BESOK. 

In Latin, Fagus ; in French, Hetre. 

143. The Botanical characters are : — It has male and female flowers, on the 
same tree ; the male flowers are collected into globular heads ; these have 
no petals, but have several stamina included in an enipalement of one leaf, 
which are terminated by oblong summits. The female flowers have a one- 
headed empalement, cut into four parts, but have no petals; the g^ermen is 
fixed to the empalement, supporting three styles, crowned by fixed stigmas. 
The germen afterwards becomes a roundish capsule, armed with soft spines, 
opening in three cells, each containing a ti-iangular nut. 

144. The Beech is a tree so well known in England; it is 
so well known to be one of the loftiest and biggest and 
hardiest trees that we have ; it is^ in so many instances, a 
sort of landmark in the country; its uses are so well known, 
and the beauty of its foliage, in the fall of the year, has 
been the theme of so many poets ; that to give any descrip- 
tion of its height, bulk, uses, or hue, would be almost an 
insult to the English reader ; I shall, therefore, go at 
once into those matters which readers, in general, are not 
well acquainted with. 

145. The seed of the Beech is a nut, contained in a thick 
and rather prickly husk. This nut is of a triangular shape, 
and is covered by a double coat, like that of a Chesnut, 
from which the kernel differs not very much in taste. These 
seeds drop from the trees, or are beaten off from them, in the 
months of October and November. They should be so ripe, 
as to fall out of the prickly husk or shell of their own accord. 
When collected together they should be laid in the sun, or 
hung' up in small quantities in bags, in some room where 
fu-e is constantly kept, in order that they may become per- 
fectly dry on the outside; but they ought not to continue in 



The Beech. 



this state for more than a few days ; for, if they become 
shrivelled, they perish at once. Wlien the nuts are dry, 
they should be put into sand that is very fine, and made 
perfectly dry, putting three bushels of sand to one bushel 
of Beech Nuts. They must not be in a damp state like 
the seeds of the Ash ; for dampness would rot them in a 
very short space of time. The Beech-nuts will not grow 
if kept over one year, 

146. When the seeds are thus mixed with the sand, they 
ought to be put into a box or barrel, and kept, if possible, 
excluded from air. They should be kept thus, until 
they be sowed ^ for doing which, the proper time is the 
month of March, or that of April : the first of April is pro- 
bably as good a time as any. I should, perhaj)?, prefer 
the fall of the year, as in the case of the Ash ; bu^, in this 
case, there are those mortal enemies, the mice; and though 
you may kill these gentlemen, or a part of them, revenge 
is poor work, in such a case : the best way is not to put the 
nuts into the ground, until you have short nights for the 
mice to work in, and until nature begin to present them 
with other dishes to feed upon. 

147. When Beech-nuts are picked up from under the 
trees, you should know whether hogs have been at work 
before you ; for if they have, and have had time to do their 
work completely, they will not have left you, except by 
nvere chance, a single nut that will grow, though they may 
have left many that have a fair outside appearance. The 
hog's nose is so discriminating, and his scent so fine, that 
he vAW discover, by merely putting his nose near the 
outside coat, or husk, vv^hether the kernel be sound, though 
that kernel has a coat under the outside husk. The safest 
way is, not to collect the nuts where hogs have been before 



The Bep:ch. 



yon ; but if you be, by any accident^ compelled to do this, 
then you ought to try the soundness of your nuts before 
you put them into sand; otherwise you can have no de- 
pendence upon them. This work of trying is performed in 
this mnnner : you put the nuts into a tub, or some vessel, 
partly filled with clear water; and all that you find to swim 
are defective to an extent that will prevent them from 
growing. It is not certain that all that sink will grow; 
but they generally will, except in cases where they have 
been laid in heaps and h^ive fermented ; for, that will effec- 
tually prevent their growing, though they w^ill, if still 
moist, sink in w^ater. The observations and instruction?, 
contained in this paragraph, apply to chesnuts, walnuts, 
hickory nuts, and nuts of all kinds, and also to acorns. 

148. The SOWING of Beech-nuts is performed in pre- 
cisely the same manner as that of Ash-seeds, for which see 
paragraph 109 and onw^ards. But the Beech-nuts may, and 
perhaps they ought to be, sown half an inch deeper. As to 
the time of sowing, it ought not to be too early ; for, if they 
lie long in the ground before they begin to spring up, they 
are food for mice all the while ; and, even if sown in March, 
you must be careful to kill these depredators if they 
attack the nuts ; for, if they once get into your beds, they 
make dreadful havock. 

149. The MANAGEMENT of the seed-beds, the trans- 
planting of the seedlings into a nursery, the management of 
them there, the final placing of them in plantations, are 
all the same as those recommended in the case of the Ash, 
But, the Beech is never planted as underwood, it being 
unfit for poles, hoops, stakes, hurdles, or tool-handles. So 
that the plantations ought never to be made very thick, as 
the wood is of little use till it attain a considerable size. 



The Beech. 



If the trees were planted four or five feet apart, tliey might 
be thinned out as they grew up, so as to leave them, at last, 
from ten to twenty feet apart. In this state they grow to a 
great height, and form very beautiful woods, especially 
where the land is chalky, or where there is a light loam 
with a sandy sort of stone beneath. As to cutting down 
the trees the year after the planting, and as to the 
PRUNING see first, paragraph 127; and, in this place, once 
for all, I will remark that all DECIDUOUS TREES, 
ought to be cut down as directed in that paragraph. If 
intended for underwood, all the shoots that thus come out 
of the stem ought to remain; but if intended for timber 
trees, they ought to be kept to one shoot ; that is to say, all 
the shoots that come out except one, and that one the 
strongest, ought to be cut away soon after they come out. 
It will generally happen, that there will be a piece of the 
stem sticking out above the point where this shoot comes 
out. That piece of the stem ought to be pared away with 
a knife, down to the point where the shoot issues. The 
shoot will then grow over it, and, at the end of the second 
year, you will not perceive that there ever has been a cut 
in the stem. Beeches, and generally all trees not intended 
for underwood, should be carefully pruned of their bottom 
side slioot» as they grow up, taking care always to cut off the 
shoots close to the steu), and with a sharp knife. You 
ought to begin pruning in the autumn after the fourth 
summer's growth, cutting off the lower side shoots, and 
leaving those of the last three years' growth ; and this you 
ought to continue to do, till you have a clear stem of the 
length you wish to have it. This is work very easily per- 
formed; the whole plantation ought to be gone over 
regularly, from one end to the other ; and the prunings 
may be tied up in bundles, and will then pay for the 
expense of the labour. 



The Birch. 



150. The Beech is always felled in the winter, at least 
when the leaf is off. The uses of the wood are, boards, 
parts of wheels, bowls, the wooden part of carpenters* 
planes, and (when farmers fed their servants in their houses, 
and when the labourer's cottage knew nothing of the 
accursed tea and crockery- ware) trenchers. This wood is, 
by cleanly people, generally chosen for dressers, and for 
shelves in milk-houses; for churns, cheese-vats, and the 
like, it being white as deal, without its disagreeable smell, 
and without its inconvenient softness. 

151. AMERICAN BEECHES.— There are two of these: 
1. The Red Beech {Fagns Ferrugina) 2. The White 
Beech {Fagns Sylvestris), These differ from each other 
in the colour of the bark, and in the size, and a little in the 
shape, of the leaf. I have seen trees of both sorts very 
lofty and big ; but I have always understood, that the 
grain of the wood is not so fine as that of our own Beech. 



THIS 

In Latin, Betula; in French, Bouleau. 

152. The Botanical characters are the same, in all respects, as those of 

The Alder, -which see in paragraph 93. 

153. Of American Birches there are no less than five 
distinct varieties ; but, as the instructions applicable to the 
English Birch apply equally well to all these, 1 shall, under 
tliis first head, give all the instructions that 1 think neces- 
sary, relative to this kind of tree. 



154. The Birch is, in this country, seldom a large tree. 



The Birch. 



or a lofty one^ though, if desirable, it might, doubtless, be 
made to become both large and lofty. But, as timber, it 
yields the superiority to so many others, and, as underwood, 
to so few, that it is seldom (unless for mere ornament) 
cultivated, except in the latter character. Many, however, 
are its good qualities. Its chief uses are in hoops and 
brooms, though its wood, when sufficiently large, might be 
applied to some of the uses to which the wood of the Alder 
is put. The Birch makes but a poor hop- pole ; and, as a 
stake, it will hardly stand a year. In quality it is inferior 
to the Hazel in hoops, in hurdles, in rods ; but it grows 
a great deal faster, more straight, and produces a much 
more abundant crop. It will, too, not only grow, but 
thrive, in any soil or situation, and does, in this respect, 
far surpass all other trees. It will flourish on the top of a 
bank of pure sand or gravel, and it will also flourish in 
a bog. It is the first tree in leaf in the spring; and, where 
it abounds, its verdure, which is peculiarly gay, glads the 
eye more than ten days before the buds have begun to send 
forth green from the other sorts of underwood. 

155. The SEED of the Birch resembles, in all respects, 
that of the Aldkr, for a description of which, and for di- 
rections as to the collecting and preserving the seed, see 
paragraphs 96 and 97; only I may add here, that the seed 
of the Birch and of the Alder, will, if kept constantly dry, 
keep good for several years. 

156. But as to the SOWING of these seeds, the directions 
are hereto be given, and these are to serve also for sowing 
the seeds of the Alder. The seed is a very minute flat 
thing, surrounded by a sort of web, or wing ; and, unless 
great pains be bestowed, it will not come up. I took, for 
several successive years, infinite pains to raise American 



The Birch. 



Birches from ?ee(l, and I always failed. Miller bad 
taught me, ihat I must cover the seed vei-y lightly ; but 
thougb I did this witb earth passed through a sieve that 
made it as fine as floui*, I got, on an average, not a plant 
in a yard square, though I sowed in the shade, and watered, 
and neglected no precaution tending to success. 

157. The Birch does not send out suckers; and, as it can- 
not be propagated by cuttings, like the Alder, the young 
plants, wherewith to make new plantations, are got from 
the woods ; are pulled up there when young, and are put 
into plantations at once, or are previously placed in a 
nursery for a short time. In the birch-woods abundance 
of seeds fall every year, and are of course never covered by 
any earth at all. They must generally fall upon, or amongst, 
leaves; but some few remain on the bare ground. Here, 
in the shade of summer, they strike ; and they barely exist 
in this shaded state, imtil the coppice he cut. Then they 
have sun and air; and while the old stems are sending up 
their new shoots, these seedlings get up too; and before 
they be completely overtopped again, they become plants 
a foot or two high. They, when they become shaded again, 
make little progress in height, but increase something in 
size of stem. When the wood is next cut, the hook sweeps 
them down amongst the rest, and then they send up strong 
shoots; they start with the old stems, and take their place 
as underwood. 

158. The last summer (1827), having failed in all my 
attempts to raise plants from American seed, I, reflecting 
on this operation in the woods, determined to try some 
seed on the top of the ground, and under shade. In order to 
insure the shade and the moisture, and, at the same time, 
to insure protection against heavy rains and gusts of wind, 



0 



The Birch. 

I prepared some ground^ on which I put cucumber-frames; 
and, in these frames, the bed of earth having" been sifted 
very finely, I sowed my seed in the following manner : — I 
first put it into warm watery and let it soak for forty-eight 
hours: I then mixed it well and truly with earth very 
finely sifted, making the whole rather wet. I laid the mix- 
ture in a heap, which I turned every day for about four or 
five days, until I saw here and there a seed beginning to 
throw out its root. I then took the mixture, and scattered 
it (seed and earth together) on the beds that I had prepared, 
gently watering the bed, and shading it with a mat, giving 
air in the day-time, and, when no rain or wind threatened, 
taking off all covering during the night. 

159. In about a week, I saw the seeds, which lay on the 
top of the ground, beginning to send out their roots, and 
to send them down into the ground. As the root descended, 
the seed rose up from the ground; and at the end of about 
four days, it was most curious, and, to me, most delightful, 
to behold, the whole bed covered with the little brown 
seeds standing up, sustained by the root. In about four 
days more, the leaves " shuffled oft' the mortal coil,'* and 
the bed was all one beautiful green. 

160. It was pretty nearly July before I resorted to this 
method, so that the plants were still very small, when over- 
taken by Autumn, and, of course, too small for sale this 
year ; but, by one transplanting, they will be made very 
fine plants. After the plants become green, you must still 
continue to shade under a hot sun, until they be fairly out 
in rough leaf ; but when they arrive at that point, they 
are safe. 

161. Here is a great deal of nicety and attention required; 



The Birch. 



but consider, that a cucumber-frame, of three or four lights, 
will give you from ten to twenty thousand trees, with as 
much certainty as you can have any plant of any kind. 
From the seed-bed the plants go into a niu'sery, where they 
are treated in precisely the same manner as directed for 
treating the seedlings of the Ash. 

162. For the want of knowing how to manage the seed- 
beds of this tree, recourse is had to the coppices; and I 
venture to say, that one thousand plants obtained in that 
way, must, on an average of cases, cost as much as the 
raising of ten thousand, in the manner above directed ; be- 
sides that the plants from the coppices must necessarily 
be poor scrubby things compared with those raised in beds. 

163. The PLANTING OUT of the Birch is performed 
in precisely the same way as that directed in the case of the 
Ash. Four feet each way is quite thick enough ; and the 
produce, if the plantation be duly attended to, is very great; 
for the shoots of the Birch grow erect; great numbers 
come out of a stem ; they grow fast ; and they suffer from 
nothing but actually cropping or breaking off. 

164. As to FELLING, the Birch, like all other under- 
woods, is cut when the leaf is off. The finer spray is selected 
for brooms; the straight rods for barrel hoops, or hurdles; 
the short and stout and straight parts, for broom handles; and 
the rough stufJ' for fagots, or fuel, in some shape or other. 
The better the ground, the faster the shoots will grow, and 
the sooner they will be fit to cut; but the Birch ought not 
to stand till it become poles ; tor, as such, it is good for 
very little. Where there is Birch, there ought, in the same 
underwood, to be nothing hut Birch; because, if with Hazel, 
for instance, it ought to be cut sooner than the Hazel, and 



The Birch. 



this cannot be, for all must stand or be felled together; so 
that, where there is a mixture, the Birch, waiting for the 
Hazel, gets to be too big before it be cut : it is a pole, by the 
time that the Hazel becomes a rod. In the case of the Jsh, 
the mixture does no harm for, though it outstrips every 
thing of English underwood, it is useful in all its stages ; 
and the bigger it is the more it is valuable. 

165. I have here been speaking only of the English 
Birch; but the thing to be desired is, a general introduc- 
tion of the American Birches. As to their seed, their pro- 
pagation, their cultivation, and their application, they have 
nothing different from ours. They are equally hardy too, 
and equally regardless of soil and situation. But they grow 
still faster than ours ; they exceed ours in straightness ; and 
they all grow to trees, like an Oak or an Ash. Miller 
strongly recommends them in preference to our own; and, 
as his book was published more than half a century back, 
and as it was, and is, a book of great repute, the reason of 
his advice having been neglected, is to be found, doubtless, 
in dijfficulty of raising plants from the seed, a difficulty which 
my successful experience has now completely removed. 

166. The American Birches are, 1. The White Birch 
{Betula Populvfolia) ; 2. The Black Birch {Betula Lenta) 5 
3. The Red Birch {Betula Rubra) ; 4. The Yellow Birch 
{Betida Lutea) ; 5. The Canoe-Birch Betula Papyracea, 
Of the size of these trees, the reader may judge from the 
name of the latter, which has been given to it because the 
Indians make their canoes with the bark of it, by taking off 
the bark, in one lohole piece, and making a canoe of it, 
sometimes sufficient to carry, very conveniently, ten or 
twelve persons. Nothing can be easier than the importing 
of the seeds of these trees, which grow in great quantities 



The Cedar. 



in all Northern parts of the United States^ in Canada, New 
Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The katkins are collected 
when ripe, made very dry, and may be brought to England 
in barrels, or bags; and as the seed, if kept in a dry state, 
will be as good at the end of two years as at the end of one 
year, it may be brought to England at any time of the year, 
and safely kept till the suitable occasion for sowing arrive. 



In Latin, Juniperus ; in French, Cedre. 

167. The botanical characters are : It has male and female flowers in 
different plants, and sometimes at separate distances on the same plant. The 
male flowers grow on a conical katkin ; the flowers are placed by threes, two 
of them fastened along the common tail opposite, terminated by a single 
one ; the scales are broad, short, lying over each other, and fixed to the 
column by a very short foot-stalk. The flower has no petal, but three sta- 
mina in the male flower, which are joined in one body below, having three 
distinct summits, adhering to the scales of the lateral flowers. The female 
flowers have a small three-pointed empalemeot, sitting upon the germen, 
which is permanent; they have three stiffs, acute, permanent petals ; the ger- 
men sitting below the empaleraeut, supports three single styles, crowned by 
stigmas. The germen afterwards becomes a roundish berry, inclosing three 
stony seeds, which are oblong and angular on one side, but convex on the 
other. 

168. Miller reckons thirteen varieties of the Cedar 5 but, 
as I am to treat of only such trees as are fit for forests, 
or woods, I shall mention but two : the RED CEDAR and 
the WHITE CEDAR; both suited to our climate, both 
hardy, both of great utility, and both thriving upon lands 
(the one on the dry and arid, and the other on the very 
wet), where hardly any other tree will even live. Lofty 
evergreens are, above all other trees, wanted in England ; 



The Cedar. 

and these two trees, besides their other numerous valuable 
qualities, give us this thing which is so desirable. 

169. Concerning the RED CEDAR {Juniperus Virgi- 
niana), I will first give what Michaux, in his American 
Sylva, says upon the subject; and then I will give an 
account of my own experience in the raising of the 
plants. 

170. " The foliage is evergreen, numerously subdivided, 
" and composed of small sharp scales enchased in one 
" another. It diffuses a resinous aromatic odour when 
" bruised ; dried and reduced to powder, it has the same 
" effect as the common Juniper, of increasing the 

efficacy of blistering plasters. The male and female 
" flowers are small, not conspicuous, and borne separately 
" on the same or on different stocks. The seeds are small 

ovate berries, bluish when ripe, and covered with a 
" white exudation. They arrive at maturity about the 
" beginning of the fall, and, if sown immediately, the 
" greater part of them shoot the following spring, but not 
" before the second year, if they are kept several months. 
" The quantity of gin made from them in the United States 
" is small, compared with what is imported from Holland. 

The name of Red Cedar is descriptive only of the per- 
" feet wood, which is of a bright tint 5 the sap is perfectly 

white. The most striking peculiarity in the vegetation 
" of the Red Cedar is, that its branches, which are nume- 
" rous and close, spring near the earth, and spread hori- 

zontally, and that the lower limbs are, during many 

years, as long as the body of the tree. The trunk de- 

creases so rapidly, that the largest stocks rarely afford 
" timber for ship-building, of more than eleven feet in 
" length. Its diameter is very much diminished by deep 



The Cedar. 

" oblong crevices in every part of the trunk^ which are 
occasioned by the large branches persisting after they are 
" dead. My own observations and experiments lead me 
" to believe that the growth of the tree might be quick- 
" ened, and this deformity prevented, by cutting the limbs 
" even with the trunk for two-thirds of its height. The 
" wood is odorous, compact, fine-grained, and very light, 
" though heavier and stronger than that of the White 
Cedar and Cypress. To these qualities it unites the 
" still more precious character of durability, and is con- 
" sequently highly esteemed for such objects as require it 
" in an eminent degree. But as it is procured with diffi- 
culty, and is every day becoming scarcer, it is reserved 
exclusively for the most important uses. The reproduc- 
tion is too trifling to be mentioned in comparison with 
" the consumption in the ports of the United States at 
" large, and particularly at New York, Philadelphia, and 
" Baltimore. In the upper part of the frame of vessels it 
" is joined with the Live Oak, to compensate its excessive 
" weight ; and this usage, more than any other, has wasted 
the species. Recourse is now had to the coast of East 
" Florida, between the St. Mary and the St. John, which 
will soon be exhausted in its turn. The nearer the Red 
" Cedar grows to the sea, and the farther southward, the 
better is its wood. Next to ship-building, it is most 
" commonly used for posts, which are highly esteemed, 
" and are reserved for inclosing court-yards and gardens in 
" the cities and their vicinity. The barriers of the side- 
" walks, in the streets of Philadelphia, are made of this 
" wood : they are ten or eleven feet long, and eight inches 
" in diameter, and are sold at eighty cents each, while those 
" of White Cedar cost only sixteen or seventeen cents. It 
" is eminently fitted for subterranean water-pipes, but is 
rarely employed, from the difficulty of obtaining stocks of 



The Cedar. 



a sufficient diameter. Small round or oval tubs, very 
" neatly wrought and hooped with brass, are made with 
staves consisting partly of the sap and partly of the 
heart. I have observed that the turners at Philadelphia 
" make the large stop-cocks of this wood. In the southern 
" states it is commonly chosen for coffins." 

171. I have imported the berries of this Cedar. They 
are about the size of a common field pea; each contains 
three hard seeds, the three being covered with a resinous 
pulp. I sowed a parcel in March, 1826, and they came up 
early in March, 1827, having been sent from America in 
the early part of J 826, in a barrel, in which they were 
mixed with dry sand. They were sowed in the manner 
that I have directed for the sowing of the Ash. They ought 
to stand another year in the seed-bed, and, after a year, or 
two at most, in nursery (put in in the manner directed for the 
Ash) J they might go into plantations. But, at every stage, 
great care ought to be taken in removing them. The same 
may be observed of all evergreens ; for they all transplant 
with more risk than diciduous trees. — See, as to transplant- 
ing and 'pruning of roots, paragraph 215, which must be 
particularly attended to, 

172. The Red Cedar is surpassed by no wood in light- 
ness, and yet it yields not even to the Locust or the Live- 
Oak in durability. Many are the instances, in Long Island, 
where you see posts of this wood that must have stood for a 
century or more, though exposed to the weather all the 
while. These trees grow on the very barrenest and most 
exposed parts of the coast, where no other trees will even 
live. In winter time, in many parts of that country, their 
boughs are a great resourse for the feeding of ewes that 
have lambs, in the absence of all other green or moist food. 

H 



The Cedar. 



This is so much the case, that the Chancellor Livingston 
(ambassador in France about twenty years ago), in a book 
which he wrote on the management of sheep, has a long 
passage upon this species of sheep-food which, indeed, I 
used to thus apply myself, and with very great success. 
These trees would thrive on any of the poorest of our hills 
of chalk, of sand, of gravel, or of rock. Nothing can be 
easier to raise, and nothing more easily to be obtained than 
the seed. 

173. WHITE CEDAR {Cupressus Thy aides) .—This tree, 
which appears to have been unknown to Miller, would seem 
to be something half way between a Cedar and a Cypress; for 
it does not bring its seed in a berry, after the manner of the 
Cedar, but in a little dry cone, not larger than a marrow-fat 
pea ; but, while it has three seeds in each cone, the cone 
is not, like that of the Deciduous Cypress, globular, but has 
little squares imprinted upon its surface. The cone is so 
compact, that, unless quite ripe, you must actually thump it 
with something hard and heavy to get out the seeds 5 but, 
if ripe, or nearly so, and laid in a warm sun, or near a fire, 
the cones w'lW open and the seed come out. 

174. The SOWING ought to take place as soon after you 
get the seeds (in the fall or winter) as the ground can be 
made to work. The manner of sowing is that of the Red 
Cedar, except that these seeds must not have more than 
an inch of covering. These seeds also do not come up till 
the second year ; the plants are to be treated, in all their 
stages, like those of the Red Cedar. But pay further parti- 
cidar attention to paragraph 215. 

175. But, as to soil and situation, this tree wholly differs 
from the Red Cedar 3 for this ti'ee loves wet land, and even 



* The Cedar. 

a swamp; and not only a swamp, but a swamp covered hy 
every spring-tide, even where the water is saltish; a thing 
that agrees with no other tree that I know of : for even 
the Jlder will not live if frequently visited by water that 
is what is called hrackish. In the account which I am 
about to give from Michaux, a good deal is said about 
the height, size, and uses of this most valuable and beau- 
tiful tree; to which I will just add, that it covers, in the 
shape of shingles^ almost all the good houses in the United 
States : painted, this covering will last a hundred years 5 
and, unpainted, thirty-five or forty. The tree is straight as 
a gun-stick, and it has all the other characteristics of 
beauty. The seed is easily obtained ; and how many now 
worthless moors and morasses, in this kingdom, might, at 
a very moderate expense, be covered with woods of this 
valuable timber ! 

176. What MicHAUx says of this tree is as follows 
" The White Cedar grows only in wet grounds. In the 
" maritime districts of New Jersey, Maryland, and Vir- 

ginia, it nearly fills the extensive marshes which lie 
" adjacent to the salt-meadows, and are exposed in high 

tides to be overflowed by the sea. In New Jersey it 
" covers almost alone the whole surface of the swamps, of 

which the Tupelo and Red Maple occupy the skirts. 
" Farther south it is mingled with the Cypress, by which it 
*Ms at length entirely supplanted. In Lower Jersey and 
" Maryland the swamps are accessible only during the 
" dryest part of the summer, and when they are frozen in 
" the winter. The trees stand so thick in them, that the 
*Might can hardly penetrate the foliage; and in their 

gloomy shade spring, at every step, tufts of the Dwarf 
" Rose Bay, Honeysuckle, and Andromeda. The luxuriant 
" vegetation proves that they delight in dark and humid 

h2 



The Cedar. * 

" exposures. The White Cedar is seventy or eighty feet 
" high, and rarely more than three feet in diameter, unless 
" perhaps in the great swamps which have not been tho- 

roughly explored, such as the Dismal Swamp near Nor- 
^' folk, in Virginia, which is covered with this species and 
" the Cypress. When the White Cedars are close and 
" compressed, the trunk is straight, perpendicular, and 
" destitute of branches to the height of fifty or sixty feet : 
" they are observed to choose the centre of the swamps, 
" and the Cypresses the circumference. The epidermis is 

very thin on the young stocks but, as they grow older, 
" it becomes thick, of a soft filaceous texture, of a reddish 
" colour, and similar to that of an old Vine. When cut, a 
" yellow transparent resin, of an agreeable odour, exudes, 

of which a few ounces could hardly be collected in a 
" summer from a tree of three feet in circumference. The 
" foliage is evergreen ; each leaf is a little branch, nume- 
" rously subdivided, and composed of small, acute, imbri- 

cated scales, on the back of which a minute gland is dis- 

cerned with the lens. In the angle of these ramifications 

grow the flowers, ^vhich are scarcely visible, and which 
" produce very small rugged cones of a greenish tint, which 
" changes to bluish towards the fall, w^hen they open to 
" release the fine seeds. The concentrical circles are 
" always perfectly distinct, even in stocks of considerable 

size, but their number and compactness prove that the 
" tree arrives at its full growth only after a long lapse of 
" years. I have counted 277 annual layers in a trunk 
" twenty-one inches in diameter, and five feet from the 
" ground, and forty-seven in a plant only eight inches thick 

at the surface, which proved it to be already fifty years 
" old. I was told that the swamp in which it grew had 
" been burnt at least half a century before, and had been 
" repeopled from a few stocks that escaped the conflagra- 



The Cedar. 

" tion^ or perhaps by the seeds of the preceding year. The 
wood is light^ soft, fine-grained, and easily wrouglit. 
" When perfectly seasoned, and exposed for some time to 
" the light, it is of a rosy hue. It has a strong aromatic 
odour, which it preserves as long as it is guarded from 
" humidity. The perfect wood resists the succession of 
dryness and moisture longer than that of any other spe- 
cies ; and for this quality principally, as well as its ex- 
" treme lightness, it is preferred at Baltimore and Phila- 
" delphia for shingles, which are cut transversely to the 
" concentrical circles, and not parallel, like those of the 
*^ Cypress. They are from twenty-four to twenty-seven 
inches long, from four to six inches broad, and three lines 
" thick at the larger end. In the advertisements of Balti- 
" more they are called Juniper Shingles, and are sold at 
" four or five dollars a thousand. At Philadelphia and 
" Baltimore they are generally preferred to those of Cy- 
press, as they are larger and are free from the defects of 
" splitting when nailed upon the rafters. The houses in 
" those cities, as well as in New York and the smaller cir- 
cumjacent towns, are covered with them ; they usually 
" last thirty or thirtj^^-five years. The domestic consump- 
" tion is great, and the exportation to the West Indies is 
estimated at several millions. The White Cedar has 
long ceased to be employed for the frames of houses : 
stocks of sufficient dimensions are rare, and are more 
" profitably reserved for shingles and for other works of 
"joinery, for which this species is superior to the White 
" Pine, being still more durable and more secure from 
worms. It continues to be used in building only near 
" the great swamps, in which it abounds, as about Greategg 
" Harbour and Indian River in New Jersey, and near the 
" Dismal Swamp in Virginia. The superior fitness of this 
wood for various household utensils has given rise, in 



The Cedar. 



Philadelphia, to a distinct class of mechanics called Cedar 
" Coopers, and a great number of workmen are employed 
" for the domestic and foreign market. They fabricate, 
" principally, pails, washtubs, and chm*ns, of different 
" forms. This ware is cheap, light, and neatly made; and 
" instead of becoming dull, like that of other wood, it grows 
" whiter and smoother by use. The hoops are made of 

young Cedars, stripped of the bark and split into two 

parts. The saplings are appropriated exclusively to this 
" object, and vary in price from live to fifteen dollars a 
" thousand, according to their length : the largest are two 
" inches thick at the base, and eleven or twelve feet long. 
^' At the mouth of the river Cape Fear, the pilots and fisher- 

men cover the sides of their boats with clap-boards of 
" White Cedar, which they prefer to those of Cypress, as 

being lighter, more durable, and less liable to split. I 
" have been assured that this wood, selected with care, 
" makes excellent sound-boards for forte-pianos. The 
" merchants of Philadelphia find it best for preserving oils. 

Charcoal, highly esteemed in the manufactory of gunpow- 

der, is made of young stocks about an inch and a half in 
" diameter, deprived of their bark ; and the seasoned wood 
" affords beautiful lamp-black, lighter and more intensely 
" coloured, though less abundant, than that obtained from 
" the Pine. In the lumber-yards of Philadelphia, White 
" Cedar boards from New Jersey, ten or twelve feet long, 
" and of a mean breadth less than thirteen inches, are sold 

at twenty dollars a thousand feet. In New Jersey, not far 
" from Philadelphia, the farmers on the borders of the 
" Cedar Swamp employ this tree for field-fence: the rails, 

formed of young stocks, entire or split in the middle, last 

from fifty to sixty years when deprived of the bark : they 
*^ are sold at six or eight dollars a hundred, and the stocks 
" proper for posts at twelve or fifteen cents a-piece. 



* The Cherry. 

Swamps which produce the White Cedar are a valuable 
" species of property, and might be rendered more profit- 
" able by more judicious management/' 



In Latin, Cerasus ; in French, Cerisier. 

177. The Botanical characters are : — The flower has a bell-shaped empale- 
ment of one leaf, cut into five parts ; it has live round large petals, which 
spread open, and are inserted in the empalement ; and from twenty to thirty 
stamina, which are nearly as long as the petals, and are also inserted in the 
empalement, terminated by twin summits. It has a roundish germen, sup- 
porting a slender style, crowned by an orbicular stigma. The germen turns 
aftel'wards to a roundish fruit, enclosing a nut of the same form. 

178. I am not about to speak of the fruit-tvees of this 
species; but solely of those trees which are useful as timber, 
and these are three in number; 1. Our native wild cherry ; 
the American wild red cherry^ and the American wild black 
cherry, 

179. The ENGLISH WILD CHERRY tree, which 
bears a little blackish and sometimes reddish fruit, will 
grow to a great size; it grows fast; its trunk is very 
straight, and its timber is pretty good ; being better, at any 
rate, than that of the Beech, or of the Elm, for boards; and, 
indeed, it is not amiss for the making of furniture, being 
of a reddish colour, compact, and admitting of a fine polish. 
As underwood, it is not good ; in poles, it is of bad shape ; 
and nothing like equal to the Ash in quality. It is wholly 
unfit for hoops, hurdles, stakes, or any other of the most 
profitable uses of underwood. If stems of it be met with 
in Gur coppices, I have always seen their produce cut up 



The Cherry. 




for fuel. But, nothing is easier to propagate or to plant, 
and the tree will thrive in almost any soil that is not 
too wet. 

180. The SEED, as is well known, is a little cherry. 
These are gathered when ripe, mixed with sand at once, 
four gallons of sand to one of cherries ; the heap (which 
may be placed in a shed or a cellar) is turned frequently; 
and, in the month of January or February, the mixture is 
sowed in all respects as has been directed for Beech-nuts. 

181. The same care, or rather more, must be taken with 
regard to mice; for the seeds must be sowed very early in 
the year, lest they should sprout while in the heap, which 
they are very apt to do, and if they sprout they are spoiled. 
The greatest care must be taken to keep the young plants 
free from weeds; for, if these be suffered to grow, the plants 
will hardly live, and, at any rate, a whole year will be lost. 

182. The TRANSPLANTING into the nursery, the 
sorting into classes, the pruning of the roots, and the final 
putting out into PLANTATIONS, are the same, in all 
respects (except as to distances in the plantations), as 
directed in the case of the Ash. 

183. But, as to DISTANCES in plantations, the Cherry 
being of no use as underwood, ought not to be planted at 
nearer than five or six feet; for the young trees are good for 
very little, and the tree naturally branches out widely. 
The tree ought to be pruned as it grows up, but always 
in time; the lower side-shoots ought to be kept cut off close 
to the stem, in such manner as to leave three or four years* 
growth above where you prune. You then get a stem to 
the length that you wish, quite clear from knots and knobs ^ 



The Cherry. 

but yon must not let the limbs grow large before you cut 
them off; for though the bark may, in time, cover the cut, 
there will be the piece of dead wood in the stem whenever 
it be cut down. 

184. The AMERICAN WILD RED CHERRY re- 
sembles the above in all respects, except that it grows to 
a much greater height, and that its wood is more red, 
much closer in its texture, and more durable. It is in all 
respects to be treated in the manner above directed for the 
English Wild Cherry. 

185. AMERICAN WILD BLACK CHERRY.— This 
is the finest tree, and produces the finest timber. The 
Americans call it the Bimch-cherry, because its fruit hangs 
in long bunches, somewhat lilie grapes. Our gardeners, 
for what reason they best know, call it the Bird- cherry/' 
and they always seem to consider it as nothing more than a 
tall flowering shmh. It is a pretty tall one to be sure : for 
I liave seen many thousands, each above a hundred feet high. 
The Botanical characters of this tree differ from those of the 
other Cherries, and are as follows : — 

186. The empalement of the flower is bell-shaped, of one leaf, indented in 
five parts at the brim, which spread open. The flower has five large roundish 
petals, which are spread open, and are inserted in the empalement. It hath 
from twenty to thirty awl-shaped stamina, which are inserted iu the empale- 
ment, terminated by roundish summits and a roundish germen, supporting 
a slender style, crowned by an entire obtuse stigma. The germen, after- 
wards a roundish fruit, inclosing an oval-pointed nut, having rough furrows. 

187. It is a great error to suppose, that this is not a 
timber tree ; for, if put into a plantation, and kept carefully 
managed, I know of few trees that would exceed it in 
height ; and I have now a chest made of the wood of this 
tree, the boards of which are two and a half feet hroad. 



The Cherry. 



The wood of this tree is beautiful in household furniture : 
it is of a light brick colour, very hard, very durable, and 
admits of as fine a polish as mahogany; and is, whether in 
tables, chairs, bedsteads, or any other thing, much more 
beautiful. It is a fast-growing tree; its leaves are long, 
smooth, and of a very bright green ; and, as a flowering tree, 
it yields to scarcely any. 

188. The SEED of this tree is a little oblong cherry- 
stone, which, as to collecting, preserving, and sowing, is 
to be treated precisely like the stones of our wild cherry. 
The Americans gather the fruit for the making of cherry- 
rum, or hraiidy, for which purpose it is preferred to the 
common black cherry, which we call 3 ferries, that being a 
corruption of the Norman term Merise. But, thougTi this 
tree is as hardy as any other of the Cherry kind, thriving 
as it does, even on the sea coast, in the Northern parts of 
the United States ; and, though it will blow very finely in 
England, its seed never does, I believe, ripen here, and 
must therefore be obtained from America, as it easily may, 
making a barrel supply the place of the shed, or the cellar, 
for keeping the seed till the sowing season arrive. 

189. These trees, when they come out of the nursery, 
ought to be put into plantations, at four feet apart; for, 
in that situation, they will grow erect, which they are apt, 
sometimes, not to do, if they have room to straggle. They 
ought to be kept pruned up, as directed in the case of the 
other Cherries, in paragraph 183. As to cutting doivn the 
year after planting, see paragraphs 127 and 149. 



' In Latin^ Castanea ; in French, Chdtaignier. 

190. The Botanical characters are :— -It has male and female flowers on the 
same tree, sometimes at separate distances, and, at other times, near each 
other. The male flowers are fixed to a long string, forming a sort of kat-kin ; 
these have each an empalement of one leaf, cut into five parts ; they have no 
petals, but include about ten or twelve bristly stamina, terminated by oblong 
summits. The female flov/ers have also an empalement of one leaf, divided 
into four parts, having no petals, but a germen fixed to the empalement, 
supports three styles, crowued by a reflexed stigma. The germen, which is 
situated at the base of the empalement, becomes a roundish fruit, armed 
with soft spines, including one or more nuts. 

191. There are divers sorts of Chesnuts ; but I need 
mention only two of these sorts, these being the only ones 
fit for timber trees or underwood; namely, the Spanish 
Chesnut and the American Chesnut. There are, indeed, 
divers varieties of what we call the Horse Chesnuts ; and as 
our Horse Chesnut always will be cultivated more or less, 
I shall speak of that bye-and-bye. 

192. THE SPANISH CHESNUT.—This is a tree not 
remarkable for great height; but it comes to a considerable 
size, and its timber is thought to be, in many respects, 
equal to that of our Oak. There are indubitable signs of 
its having been a tree much cultivated in England in former 
times :— the roofing of Westminster Hall is said to consist 
of Chesnut w^ood, which is also to be found in almost all of 
those gentlemen's mansion-houses, such great numbers of 
which existed in England formerly, and so very few 
of which the Protestant Reformation, aided so materially by 
the loaning and funding and paper-money system, has left 



The Chesnut. 



standing in any part of the kingdom. This tree has, how- 
ever, been supplanted by the Oak, as timber; but as under- 
wood it is excellent, while the Oak, as underwood, is really 
good for nothing, except for fuel ; and, even as fuel, it yields 
to almost every other tree, until the wood be of a consider- 
able size. 

193. The SEED of the Chesnut is to be collected, pre- 
served, and sowed, in precisely the same manner as directed, 
for the seed of the Beech, to which the reader will be 
pleased to turn back; but the seed of the Chesnut is much 
more delicate than that of the Beech, and maggots are 
much more apt to get into it. These insects have the per- I 
verseness to prefer the germ of the seed to all other parts 

of it; the moment they enter they begin upon the germ, 
and the moment they begin upon it they destroy the vege- 
tative faculty of the seed. Therefore, if you collect your 
own seed, tlie greatest possible care must be taken to make 
it perfectly dry as soon as possible ; not to put it into large 
parcels; you ought to turn it and rub it several times in 
order to destroy the eggs from which the maggots come. 
When the seed is 'perfectly dry, made so in the sun, if 
j)ossible, it ought to be packed in jars or barrels, along 
with very dry sand, four times as much sand as chesnuts, 
and duly mixed; and then the jars or barrels ought to be 
closed down as carefully as if containing currant-jelly or 
choice pickled pork. 

194. The SOWING ought not to take place until 
towards the end of March or the beginning of April. The 
manner of sowing is that described in the case of the Beech. 
The earth should be very finely broken, and the seeds, after 
being scattered over the beds, ought to be well pressed 
down by the back of the spade, in order that they may not 



The Chesnut. 



become exposed by tbe washings of heavy rams. They 
come up in the month of May, and they get, by the month 
of October, to be about six or seven inches high, with 
leaves pretty nearly as- large as those of the old tree. 

195. If the seeds be imported^ you run great risks ; for 
they may have been put into an oven^ in order to prevent 
their heating on the voyage ; and, nine times out of ten, 
that will destroy the germ, though the nut may still be very 
good for eating. If the nuts have been put in heaps, or 
packages, and have at all fermented, they will not grow. 
I received several barrels, three years ago, in a very fine 
state, mixed with sand, perfectly dry. In order to put 
them in a state of greater security, I deemed it advisable 
to lay them in a heap in the garden, separated from their 
sand, and covered over with a foot thick of mould. My 
ground was not ready, and I feared that they would get too 
dry before I could conveniently sow them. But, deprived 
of their sand, and being put together in a heap, the moisture 
that remained in them caused them to heat and to mould, 
I examined the germs of them, and found them all rotten. 
I sowed them, however, but had not one single plant, when 
I ought to have had twenty, or perhaps fifty, thousand ; 
and I have invariably found, that if seed, no matter of what 
sort, once ferment, be it ever so little, it will not grow. 
This is almost always the case with acorns that have to be 
conveyed from one place to the other ; and it is for this 
reason that they ought always to be made very dry ; and, 
for fear of their becoming withered, and the destruction of 
the germ produced this way, they ought always to be 
packed in very dry sand. 

196. As to the TRANSPLANTING from the seed-bed 
to the nursery, and from the nursery to the plantation, 



The Chesnut. 



follow, ill all respects, tlie directions given in the case of 
the Ash. If Chesnuts be intended for timber, they ought 
to be planted in rows of four feet apart, and at four^feet 
apart in the row, the plants in one row standing opposite 
the middle of the intervals in the other row, which indeed 
ought to be the case in the planting of all other trees. As 
to managhig the ground of the plantation, follow the rules 
laid down in the case of the Ash ; and as to cutting down 
the plants the year after they are planted, and also as to 
pruning, see paragraphs 127 and 149. 

197. When UNDERWOOD is the object in a planta- 
tion of Chesnuts, the rows ought to be five feet apart at 
the least, and the plants five feet apart in the row. The 
Chesnut stem spreads wider and requires more room than 
that of the Birch, the Hazel, or even of the Ash. As 
underwood, the Chesnut is useful, chiefly sls poles, of which 
it produces very good ones, lasting as long or longer, as 
hop-poles, than the Ash; but it does not grow so fast as 
the Ash, and, unless great care be taken, has some disad- 
vantages unknown to the Ash. It sends out stout side- 
shoots, coming opposite each other ; and this makes a great 
swell in the middle of the pole, and causes the upper part 
of the pole to diminish in size too rapidly. Then, to get a 
Chesnut pole any where between twelve and twenty feet in 
length, there will always be a dispropartionate butt ; the butt 
will be too large in proportion to the top of the pole. This, 
in hop-poles, for which purpose Chesnuts are generally em- 
ployed, is a disadvantage that none but skilful hop-planters 
can know of. The bine of the hop (and it is the same with 
all other climbing plants) do not like to have a big thing to 
go round at starting. The reason of this I do not very well 
know ; but of the fact I am quite sure. I suppose the 
reason to be that, in going round so large a thing, the 



The Chesnut. 



point of the bine is kept, at certain times, too long from 
the sun. At any rate, such is the fact; and, if you take two 
hop-bines coming out of the same hill, and out of the same 
plant, and being exactly of the same age and strength, and 
put one to a pole which is three inches through, and another 
to a pole which is two inches through, you will see the 
latter not only mount a great deal faster than the former, 
but be, and continue to be throughout the summer, much 
more vigorous, and finally to produce a better crop. This 
fact is well known to all intelligent hop-planters, some of 
whom, in order to obviate the injury arising from large- 
butted poles, stick in little rods as leaders, to conduct the 
bine to the pole, at two or three feet from the ground. 

198. For this reason the Chesnut Poles ought to be so 
managed, as to be kept as small as possible at the butt. 
This object is best insured by crowding, by pruning the 
side shoots, and by thus sending the sap towards the top of 
the plant. No body prunes underwood ; but it would pay 
very well, especially in the case of the Chesnut, As many 
shoots as come out, ought to be left to grow from the stem, 
which naturally tend to diminish the size of the butts ; 
while taking off the side shoots, to six or seven feet from 
the ground, would cause the top of the pole to be stouter 
in proportion to the bottom. When Chesnut coppices are 
cut down, the cutting, as mentioned in the case of the 
Ash, and is to be understood with regard to all other under- 
woods, ought to be as close to the ground as possible, and 
always with an upward, and not with a downward, stroke 
of the hook or axe. 

199. AMERICAN CHESNUT.—This is far more lofty 
than I have ever seen any of the Spanish Chesnuts. It 
frequently rises to the height of a hundred feet; and I have 



The Chesnut. 

seen four trunks coming out of one old stem, which had 
been the support of a very large tree, each of the four mea- 
suring more than a hundred feet in length, and that, too, 
in very poor but light land ; and I must here observe, which 
perhaps I ought to have done before, that the Chesnut does 
not like wet land. The better the ground, doubtless, the 
faster the growth 5 but Chesnuts will thrive very well in 
poor dry land. 

200. The seed of the American Chesnut is not much 
more than a fourth part of the size of the Spanish Chesnut, 
but it is sweeter in flavour. The timber is ecpially good, 
and the American is much the best for underwood, being 
of faster growth, and in its nature so much taller, and so 
much less prone to be stouter at the butt in proportion to 
the summit. To collect and send the seeds from America 
is somewhat expensive ) but the superiority of the plant 
over the Spanish Chesnut is more than a sufficient induce- 
ment to planters to encounter this expense. 

201. As to the sowing of the seeds, the management of 
them in the seed-bed, the removal of them into the nursery, 
and the final transplantion to the spot where they are to 
stand, the directions just given with regard to the Spanish 
Chesnut, all strictly apply; but I think tlmt four feet dis- 
tances, in the planting of underwoods with these, would be 
quite sufficient. They grow more erect than the others ; 
they do not require so much room they are apt to throw 
out a less number of, and smaller, side shoots; therefore a 
greater number of stems might stand upon the same space 
of ground. The age at which a Chesnut Coppice ought to 
be cut, must, of course, depend upon the growth, and the 
growth upon the nature of the soil; but I am clearly of 
opinion, that the American Chesnut would require a year 



The Chesnut. 



or two less of growth, to make hop- poles, than the Spanish 
Chesnut, planted on the same spot. With regard to the 
cutting down of the plants, the next year after they are 
planted out, and with regard to the pruning of them for 
timber-trees, see paragraphs 127 and 149. 

202. Chesnut (Horse). This tree, which is sometimes 
very large and very lofty, and though the timber of it is 
poor, the leaf coarse, and soon becoming brown in the sum- 
mer, and though the tree will never be cultivated for 
profit, it is certainly one of the finest flowering trees in the 
world. There are several varieties of it, in several parts of 
the world. There are two distinct sorts in America, one 
having a scarlet, and the other a yellow blossom ; but these 
not being fit for forest-trees in England, and being, in fact, 
mere ornamental shrubs, or trees, I shall not notice them 
here. The seed of the Horse Chesnut is collected in the 
fall of the year, when the outside shell opens and lets it out. 
The seed is preserved in the same manner, sown in the 
same manner (only covered a little deeper), and the plants 
are treated, in all their stages, in the same manner as above 
directed for the Spanish Chesnut, except only that the 
plants of this tree are naturally so stout at the butt, and 
suffer so little from transplanting, that they need not be cut 
down the second year. If, however, you wish for a straight 
trunk, you must plant the tree after it has been a year or 
two removed into the nursery; and if you wish for a clean 
and long trunk, you must prune in the manner directed in 
paragraphs 12/ and 149. 



THIS CRAS. 



In Latin, Malus ; in French, Pommier Sauvage, 

203, The Botanical characters are :— The empalement of the flower is of 
one leaf, cut into five segnnents. The flower consists of five leaves, which 
expand in the form of a rose, the tails of -which are inserted in the empale- 
ment. The fruit, which is hollowed about the foot-stalk, is for the most 
part roundish, and umbeliated at the top ; it is fleshy, and divided into five 
cells or partitions, in each of which is one oblong- seed. 

204. 1 am not about to recommend the planting, to any 
extent, of this tree; but I notice it, because it is found in 
all our woods, and because there are certain uses to which 
it is put. The timber, which seldom attains a considerable 
size, is excellent for the cogs of mill-wheels, for heads of 
beetles, and for some other purposes, where the quality of 
not being apt to split is required. As an underwood, it is 
mere fuel, except for the making of walking-sticks and 
clubs, in which capacities, especially when stout, it is pro- 
verbially efficient. Allied to these functions is that, cer- 
tainly more useful, of its super-excellence in the making of 
what the thrashers call the swingles of flails, it being capable 
of wearing the stoutest man out, if he ply it well, and 
during those parts of the year when there is thrashing to 
do. In Hedges, it is very beautiful in the spring, and also 
in independent trees ; for, in the month of May, it is a great 
bush, or a little tree, covered v\ath blossoms as bright as 
those of the Carnation, and a great deal larger. When the 
coppices are cut, the Crabs, if they go up in a single stem, 
are generally left as the Oaks are ; and, in the month of 
May, the garlands presented by the Crab trees, while the 
Primroses bespangle the ground beneath, and while the 
birds are singing all around, certainly give us, altogether. 



The Crab. 



something more delightful than almost any thing else ac- 
cessible to our senses. 

205. But, as a Hedge, the Crab is too rugged ; its wood 
becomes quickly too big ; there come openings at the bot- 
tom, and the fence is not effectual for many of its purposes. 
But if a Crab-plant were put in a Hawthorn hedge, along 
with the Hawthorn-plants, and at every twenty or thirty 
feet distance, and trained up to a single stem, and then 
left to get a head, the bottom part of which should be about 
two feet clear of the top of the hedge, the Crabs would not 
injure the hedge, and would produce a very charming effect. 

206. The SEED of the Crab is precisely like that of the 
Apple ; and I am sure the reader has eaten too many apples 
not to know what sort of things they are. To get these 
seeds in order to sow them, you have nothing to do but to 
take the pommice from the press where verjuice has been 
made, or to gather up the crabs themselves when they 
have dropped from the tree, mash them to pieces by some 
means or other, and sow them, pommice and all, in just 
the same manner as directed for the sowing of the Ash. 
This work may be done in November, or at any time be- 
tween that or the end of March. 

207. The management in the seed-beds, and all the sub- 
sequent operations, including that of planting out, are just 
the same as those pointed out for the Ash. The plants ought 
to be cut down the year after planting ; and if you want them 
to go up with a single stem, they ought to be pruned in 
the manner directed in paragraph 149. 

208. There is an American Crab, the fruit of which 
would pass for a winter-apple in England; the leaf of 

I 2 



The Cypress. 



which is of a very ornamental shape, and that leaf dies in 
the autumn of a bright scarlet colour, and in that colour 
hangs upon the tree until nearly Christmas, as I have had 
it hang in my garden in Kensington. 



In Latin, Cuprcssus Disticha ; in French, Cypre. 

209. The botanical characters are : — It has male and female flowers, at 
distances, on the same plant ; the male flowers are formed into oval katkins, 
in which the flowers are placed thinly, among several roundish scales, each 
having a single flower. These have no petals nor stamina, but have four 
summits, which adhere to the bottom of the scales. The female flowers are 
formed in a roundish cone, each containing eight or ten flowers; the scales 
of the cones are opposite, each having a single flowei-, these have no petals : 
the germen is scarcely visible, but under each scale there are many punc« 
tures or spots, and a concave truncated apex, instead of a style ; this after- 
wards becomes a globular cone, opening in an angular target-shaped scale, 
vinder which are situated angular seeds. 

210. This is one of the largest trees in the world. M[- 
CHAUX says that it frequently attains the height of one hun- 
dred and twenty feet, and as frequently forty feet in cir- 
cumference, at a considerable distance from the ground. 
He says that Humboldt found several of these trees in 
the ancient garden of the Emperor of Mexico, which were 
planted there before the first arrival of the Spaniards in 
that country. This tree delights, not in a swamp, but in 
wet land on the borders of rivers, marshes, or swamps. Its 
timber is better than that of the Pine, more close, finer 
grained ; after being some time exposed to the air, it is of a 
reddish colour, and it is of great strength and elasticity. 
The tree, as an object of beauty, surpasses almost every 
other. It drops its leaves in the fall, or, rather, in the win- 



The CypRKss. 



ter 5 but they come out again early in the spring, and hang- 
on till nearly Christmas, being of a reddish colour for six 
weeks before they come off. The branches come out from 
the sides of the tree like those of the Larch, but they are 
more pendulous; the leaf is finer and brighter; it is much 
thicker on the branch ; and the tree, taken altogether, is 
certainly one of the very finest of vegetable productions. 
In the time of Miller, there were but three or four of this 
sort of tree in England. I myself never saw but one here ; 
and that is now standing in the ornamental part of the 
estate, at the farm-house of which I am now writing, and 
which was an object of great beauty even so late as Christ- 
mas day. 

211. The SEED of this tree does not ripen in England; 
but it is easily enough imported, and I have sold some thou- 
sands of the trees this year. The cones came to me packed 
up in barrels, mixed up with dry sand. We easily squeezed 
them to pieces, and then sowed them, shells and all toge- 
ther. They come up the first year, and attain the height 
of about a foot before the month of October. 

212. The SOWING is in beds, and the manner of doing 
it the same that has been pointed out in the case of the 
Ash, only that the covering ought not to be of greater 
thickness than an inch and a half. Great care ought to be 
taken to keep the plants perfectly clear of weeds ; for they 
suffer exceedingly if annoyed by them. About the middle 
of summer the ground should be broken a little between 
the plants, to favour the operation of the dews; for it is 
desirable that they grow as much as possible the first year. 

213. The plants ought to be removed in the same manner, 
but with very great care, as directed for the Ash; if put - 



The Cypress. 



into plantations, the distances might be from five to six 
feet apart ; keeping on catting out or thinning, as the 
tre^s approach too near to the branches of each other; but 
1 do not know that any priming would be necessary or pro- 
per in this case. The young trees, when cut out, would 
serve for poles or some other uses. 

214. As to cutting down, the year after planting, though 
this is really a deciduous tree, that perhaps would not be 
proper, and indeed I think it would not, though 1 have no 
experience to guide me. This tree appears to be some- 
thing between a Fir and a deciduous tree. It is resinous, and 
I do not know whether, if cut down, it would throw out any 
shoots at all. Great care must therefore be taken, that the 
young plants do not lose their leading shoots, or, if they do, 
to see that they have another leader as quickly as possible. 
They are very apt to be nipped by the frosts in the seed- 
bed, which is of not much consequence if you cut off the 
dead part with a sharp knife, and make your cut sloping 
opposite a bud, so that a new leader may come the 
second year. 

215. This tree, as well as the Cedars and all evergreens^ 
ought to be moved either early in the fall or late in the 
spring, and with great care, kept out of the ground as short 
a time as possible, and the roots not exposed to the sun or 
to the Vv'ind. In the case of deciduous trees in general, it 
does not signify much, if the tops of them be insufficiently 
supplied with sap the first year ; because the next year they 
are to be cut down to the ground, and the root will have 
got strength sufficient to send up new shoots and put every 
thing to rights. This is not the case with Evergreens : if 
they be cut down, the root instantly dies. For this reason, 
also, there must be vet^y little pruning of the roots in these 



The Dogwood. 



cases. The long and straggling roots may be taken off, 
but the fibres must not; and the whole must go into the 
ground again as entire as possible. This is a matter of 
very great importance, and ought to be most strictly 
attended to. 



THIS BO^WO^^. 

In Latin, Cornus ; in French, Cornuiller. 

216. The botanical characters are :— It has many flowers included in one 
common four-leaved involucrum, which is coloured. The flowers liave each 
a small empaleraent, sitting on the germen, which is indented in four parts. 
They have four plain petals, which are smaller than the leaves of the involu- 
crum, and four erect stamina, which are longer than the petals, terminated 
by roundish summits. The round germen, situated below the empalement, 
supports a slender style, crowned by an obtuse stigma. The germen after- 
wards becomes an oval or roundish berry, inclosing a nut, with two ceils 
having an oblong kernel. 

217. There are several varieties of the Dogwood, 
two or three of which are natives of America; but 
these are merely flowering shrubs, and are used for orna- 
mental purposes. The Dogwood that I have to speak of 
is the underwood which, in our own coppices, goes by that 
name. Till very lately, I always looked upon this as a 
perfectly insignificant, or, rather, mischievous plant. It 
will grow in very poor ground, to be sure ; but I never 
saw it used for any other purpose than that of fuel, and 
never saw it grow to any considerable size. I never saw it 
formed into a hoop, a hurdle, a rod, or a stake. But of late 
years it has been discovered that it makes the very best of 
charcoal for using in the manufacturing of gwipoivder ; 
and, therefore, considering that we have such a thundering 



The Elder. 



it may not be so well known to every body that it may be 
raised from seed, as well as from cuttings; and that its 
wood yields to that of very few trees, in point of compact- 
ness, hardness, and durability. Elder-wood, when it attains 
any size, is frequently made use of for inlaying, for the 
making of rules, and for many of those purposes to which 
the wood of the box is applied ; and it is not much inferior 
to the box in point of fineness of grain, though it is not so 
clear, and not quite so yellow, as the wood of the box. 
There is scarcely any tree which shoots so far in a year, as 
the Elder; yet, even in its young state, it is a very hard 
and durable wood. For the first year, the shoot is abso- 
lutely hollow : it is a piece of pith surrounded by a crust of 
^vood; and every man knows that, when a boy, he has made 
l^op-guns of it ; and most of the men now alive, who look 
well at the consequences of other guns, that have brought 
so much dignity to the Dogwood, must heartily wish that 
the whole nation could return to the exclusive use of the 
Elder. In the third year of its growth, however, the 
wood gets rid of this pith; and by the end of the fourth or 
fifth year, the shoot will make a stake, the durability of 
which has long been so proverbial, as to give rise to the 
following couplet 

Au Elder stake and aHtwel heather 
Will make a hedge to last for ever." 

The reader must know, that the stakes are the upright 
supporters of the hedge ; but he may not so well know, 
that the heather, which ought, perhaps, to be header, are the 
rods which are put along on the top or head of the hedge, 
to fasten the bushes, or other stuff, down. 

223. The propagation of the Elder is generally, if not 
always, by cuttings (cut off any time between September 



The Elder. 



and March), little or big, stuck into the ground, in wliicli 
ground, whetlier dry or wet (if not absolutely in water), the 
cutting is sure to become a tree, and that too in a very 
little time. The Elder likes moist ground best ; and, like 
other trees, it likes good ground better than bad, but it 
will grow in any ground. 

224. The SEED of the Elder is the little berry that it is 
well known to bear in such great abundance. This seed, 
if you mean to sow it, should be gathered when dead ripe; 
should be put into sand, in the manner directed in the case 
of the Cherry ; should be kept in that state until March, 
and then sowed on beds, in the manner directed for the 
Ash, only that the seed should not be covered with earth 
more than an inch deep. The plants will come up in the 
latter end of May, and will be a foot high in the fall of the 
year. The after-treatment is to be just the same as that 
directed for the Ash, until the plants be finally put out; 
and as it is not here a question of plantations, there is no 
occasion for speaking of distances. If you wish to have 
them to grow tall and to have a clear stem, you must cut 
them down and prune them, as directed in paragraphs 127 
and 149. 

225. I cannot conclude this article without expressing my 
surprise, that no one appears ever to have cultivated the 
Elder from seed. The reason why we always see them squat, 
bushy-headed things, is, that they are always raised from 
cuttings, that being the easiest way ; but we should always 
remember, that a cutting is a branch of a tree; and that a 
branch it must always continue, and never can become a 
tree, with a regular butt and trunk. The reason why 
Apple trees are invariably bushy-headed, is, that they are 
branches of trees. The stem, indeed, may have come from 



The Elm. 



a seed, but the graflP is a brand i, and from the graff comes 
the head of the tree. If the Elder were raised from the 
seed, I have no doubt of its attaining a height equal to that 
of the Horse Chesnut. At that height, its flowers would 
make a grand show 5 and as to the timber, it would, I verily 
believe, be the rival of the Locust. Its hardness fits it for 
many purposes, and great durability accompanies this 
hardness. 

226. There are several American Elders, varying from 
each other in the size and shape of the leaf, and all varying 
from ours. Michaux makes no mention of these Elders ; 
but I have some plants of the American Red Elder now 
growing in my garden. 



In Latin, Ulmus; in French, Orme, 

227. The botanical characters are : — The flower has a rough permanent em- 
palement of one leaf, cut at the rim into five points, and coloured within ; 
it has no petals, but has five awl-shaped stamina twice the length of the 
empaleraent, terminated by short erect summits, having four furrows and an 
orbicular erect germen supporting two st^'les which are reflexed, and crowned 
hy hairy stigmas. The germen afterwards turns to a roundish compressed, 
bordered capsule, including one roundish compressed seed, 

228. Miller reckons six sorts of Elms known in Eng- 
land ; but I shall speak of the mode of cultivating this tree, 
having in my eye the common English Elm, with small 
leaves, oval, acute-pointed, doubly sawed, and unequal at 
their base, which Miller calls the Ulmus Stativus, 



229. It is very curious that Miller, after having very 



The Elm. 



accurately described the flower and the seed of the Elm, 
should, when he comes to talk of the propagation of the 
plant, not say one single word about propagation by seed ; 
but falls to work to tell us, that the tree is propagated from 
suckers, or from layers, and that layers are better than 
suckers, because, in taking up the young plants, there is 
not so much danger of tearing the roots to pieces. This is 
a very curious way of plastering over a want of knowledge 
of his subject. Why did he not get some of the seeds, as 
they were to be got in such abundance, and try them in his 
garden ; surely the seeds were not made for nothing. There 
never was a seed yet, which, if perfect, would not produce 
the like of the plant it came from. The Scripture tells us, 
that every tree bears its seed in itself ; and certainly it does, 
though laziness and inattention resort to cuttings and layers, 
and thus produce a degenerate race of many sorts of trees. 
Almost all the Elms are propagated from suckers : suckers 
produce suckers ; and every farmer knows what a curse an 
Elm tree is, standing on the side of a meadow or a field. 
As to layer's, they are like cuttings or branches of trees, and 
he must be a fool, indeed, that expects a long and clear 
trunk to come out of a branch. 

230. We all know the various uses of the Elm ; it is used 
by w^heelwrights for various purposes : its boards, though 
not good, come quickly; the tree grovvs fast, and to a great 
size ; it has an ample foliage, and though by no means 
beautiful, it soon makes a bare spot look green : the tree 
will grow in almost any soil, though it likes good ground 
better than bad. It is one of the great trees of the country ; 
the fuel it gives is good ; and certainly some pains ought 
to be taken to have the tree straight and clear, free from 
suckers coming out from the roots, and free from those 
everlasting knots and knobs which suckers invariably have 



The Elm. 



upon their trunk. Besides this, iliere is the great expense 
of suckers and layers. Miller may say what he pleases 
about stools in a nursery, to get layers from j but recollect 
the vast difference between the trouble of layers and that 
of raising the plants from the seed. 

231. Now I know that the Elm is easily raised from the 
seed. Miller tells us, that there are " some who raise 
Witch Elms from seed'*^ and why not raise all Elms 
from seeds ? I have made no actual experiment with the 
English Elm; but I see the seeds in great abundance, and 
I can see no reason why one should not come from the seed 
as well as the other. I have experience with regard to the 
American Elms, for I have smjcn the seeds^ and have the 
plants; and now I shall proceed to give my directions for 
propagating the Elm from seed. 

232. The SEED, which the trees generally bear in great 
abundance, bears a strong resemblance in point of shape 
to a fried egg, the white of which spreads itself out in the 
pan, while the yolk lies in a little raised lump in the middle. 
That little lump of oblong shape, but wider at one end than 
the other, is the seed; that which surrounds it is a sort of 
wing, very thin, which is doubtless intended to convey the 
seed a distance from the tree. These seeds, which at first 
are green, become of a pale brownish colour in May, and 
then they are ripe. 

233. In speaking of the sowing of the seed, the best way 
will be for me to give an account of what I myself did. The 
seeds ripen in the month of May, in America, and I had 
some seed sent thence to me, in that month. Anxious 
to know whether the seeds would grow, I sowed a part of 
them in July; and, in the month of September, in spite of 



The Elm. 



Chaffinches and Greeiifinches, the plants came np and got 
into rough leaf before November 5 when, being so very 
young, the severe frosts which we had in that month, did, 
I am afraid, totally destroy them. I shall not be sure of 
this for a month or two hence (it is now February) ; but 
I ascertained the ftict that Elm seeds will grow as easily as 
Onion seeds, and that they wdll come up much more quickly. 
Mine came up before I expected that they would; they had 
been poking their heads out of the ground two days before 
I perceived it 5 and, when I did perceive it, I perceived the 
ground covered over with the roots, with which the Finches, 
from their closely neighbouring abode in a warm and lofty 
shrubbery, had strewed it, by stripping off the heads of 
the seed the moment they made their appearance above 
ground. 

234. Let me stop here to beseech, with the greatest 
earnestness, all those who sow Elm seeds, to guard the 
beds effectually against these unreasonable, persevering, 
and ever-active foes. They set at defiance all your boys 
and girls and shoy-hoys ; they have done their work for 
the day long before any boy or girl or man can be got out 
of bed. These gentry go to their beds at sun-set, a very 
good hint for us ; and they have their meal for the day many 
minutes before the sun rises. At the first glimpse of the 
Aurora they are on your beds 5 nothing escapes their eye, 
and the beak follows the eye instantaneously. I knew' that 
these provoking creatures never gave rest to radish, turnip, 
and other peppery seeds ; I knew that they harassed the 
beds of firs and spruces 5 but how should I thhik of their 
being so fond of a rough and husky seed like that of the Elm, 
and especially when 1 knew that neither they nor their 
progenitors had ever seen abed of Elm seeds before. Such, 



The Elm. 



however, was the fact; and, instead of twenty thousand 
plants, I got perhaps three. 

235. I sowed my seeds with the following preparation, 
and in the following manner : — First, owing to my im- 
patience to ascertain their soundness, I soaked them and 
mixed them with earth, in the manner that I have described 
with regard to the Birch seeds, in paragraph 158. When 
I saw that the seeds were grown very plump, I sowed them 
on beds, on which I first sifted some earth, and, when the 
seeds were sown, I covered them with finely-sifted earth, 
about an inch deep. If they had been sown in the spring, 
they would have attained the height of twelve or fifteen 
inches by the month of October; and, as it was, they gene- 
rally attained the height of two or three inches, and had 
long and beautiful rough leaves upon them when the frost 
overtook them in November. This, therefore, is the way 
in which I recommend the seeds of the Elm to be sown. 

236. As to the manner of preserving the seeds; when 
gathered, which, as we have seen, is in the month of JNlay, 
they should be made as dry as paper, by being placed for 
several successive days in the sun. When they are per- 
fectly dry, put them into bags, not more than two or three 
gallons in each, and hang them up in a perfectly dry place. 
There they will safely hang till the next month of April, 
and then they ought to be sown in the manner I sowed 
mine. If you soak the seed, you ought to water the beds, 
gently, the next day, and, whether you soak them or not, 
you ought to shade the beds with mats laid on them until 
the seeds begin to come up ; that is to say, if the weather 
be very dry. A gentle watering in the evening, and shad- 
ing in the heat of the day, will soon bring them up, whether 
soaked or not. 



Th^ Elm. 

1237. The beds being kept careftiUy weeded, and most 
effectually guarded against birds, which I defy you to do 
unless you cover with glass, w^hich is bad for such things, 
or with a net that is so line that a Finch cannot by possi- 
bility get its head through, it being impossible to guard 
against the birds by coarse nets, which, though you double, 
or treble, or quadruple them, will shade the ground, and 
■will yet leave some hole for the birds to get through : these 
precautions being taken, your plants, which are very 
slender, and which may stand very thick in the seed-bed, 
will be fit to go into the nursery in the month of October, 
or early in November, after which their treatment is to be 
precisely that of the Ash, even to cutting down the second 
year, and pruning as directed in paragraphs 127 and 149. 

238. With regard to distances, it is hardly necessary to 
speak of them, as Elms are generally destined for avenues, 
hedge -rows, or independent situations; they may, however, 
form a clump, or even a plantation; and in that case you 
must prune and thin out, as the plantation grows, in the 
same manner as directed for the Beech in paragraph 149. 

239. Elms, like all other deciduous trees the bark of 
which is of no use, are cut when the leaf is off, and the sap 
is down. Young ones will come up in prodigious numbers 
from the roots after the tree is cut ; and therefore the best 
way is to grub the tree, and to rely upon the seeds for young 
ones. A quart of Elm seeds consists, I should think, of 
about two thousand in number. These will stand very con- 
veniently upon one rod of ground, as a seed-bed. Here 
are two thousand plants obtained at the expense (if of 
English seed) of less than half -a-cr own, weeding and every 
thing included. A man will dig the rod of ground in an 
hour, and sow it in another; and it would be hard to find 

K 



Thk Elm. 



a person so lazy as not to perforin tliree weedings in the 
space of half a day. Elm trees, from the nurseries, 
must be dear. The work of raising layers is tedious ; 
a monstrous space is required to raise many thou- 
sands. It is impossible for a nursery-man to raise 
them in this way, and to produce good plants, under four 
or five pounds a thousand. Stickers, he may, indeed, find 
enough ; but they must be dug up; they must be brought 
from some distance; they must be trimmed, head and root, 
before he can put them into the nursery : after that they 
must be cut down, and have a year's growth after that, 
even in the nursery, before they can be put out into plan- 
tations; and after all they are poor scrubby things, with an 
imperfect and half- rotten root; and though they generally 
will grow, it is next to impossible that they should ever 
make a fine tree. As to the layers, they are produced by fix- 
ing down a large branch upon the ground, and laying earth 
upon the stems of the smaller branches. It is two years 
before they get roots sufficient to suffer them to be removed ; 
they are then put into a nursery in rows: there they are 
cut dow^n, and must have the growth of a year or two before 
they can be finally planted out. 

240. THE WITCH ELM.— This is the only other Elm 
that we have which is of any importance; Miller calls it 
the Uhius Campestris, or common ruff or broad-leaved 
Witch Elm. The propagation of this is in all respects like 
the former. In some parts of the kingdom it is preferred 
to the first, for its timber; and as Miller himself confesses 
that some people raise this Elm from seeds, it is impossible, 
one would think, to find an apology for the bungling, the 
tardy, the expensive practice, of raising the plants from 
suckers or layers. 



The Elivi. 

241. AMERICAN ELMS.— There are, according to 
Michaux, the White Elm and the Red Elm, the former 
heing the largest and finest tree, and also producing the 
best timber. These Elms are greatly superior to ours: 
the tree is much loftier; the foliage, beyond all comparison 
more beautiful, and the wood finer grained ; and, in every 
respect, far preferable to ours. The seed sent to me the 
year before last, which came from the borders of Lake 
Ontario, were gathered from a tree which had a clear 
straight stem seventy feet high before it began to ramify. 
The leaves of these Elms are between three and four mches 
long, rather narrow in proportion to their length, very 
pointed, very much sawed, and of a lively beautiful green, 
which they retain throughout the whole of the hottest 
summer. 

242. Now if it were to be believed that the seeds of the 
English Elm cannot be made to grow ; if it were possible 
to make any rational being believe this, why not import the 
seeds from America? Nothing can be easier; and I do 
not say this without having given proof of the fact. I have 
done the thing myself ; and therefore I have a right to say, 
that any planter may do it if he will. But, and with this 
remark I shall close what 1 have to say upon the subject of 
the Elm, great care must be taken that the seeds be not 
put together in such a state as to expose them to fermenta- 
tion. All vegetables are prone to ferment, if put together in 
considerable quantities. Not one thousandth part, perhaps, 
of the grass-seeds grow, that have once been in a hay-rick. 
The sweepings of a hay-loft will produce a prodigious 
number of plants; but I am convinced, that, if the rick have 
heated, no growing seeds will come out of any part of the 
hay, except that part that has lain near the outside of the 
rick. In the case of seeds like those of the Elm, you do not 

K 2 



The Fir. 

perceive, when you open the package, that they have fer- 
mented. They even appear to be sound and solid ; but if 
there have been fermentation the seeds will not grow ; the 
germ is the thing of importance; it is very tender, and is 
destroyed by the least degree of fermentation. I expected 
at least two hundred thousand plants from the Elm seeds 
which I imported the summer before last. Nothing could 
appear to be in better condition. I sowed them with as 
much confidence as 1 should have sowed radish seed that 
I had raised myself, and not one single seed ever came up. 

In Latin, Abies; in French, Epicie. 

243. The botanical characters are: — The male flowers are disposed in a loose 
bunch, having no carolla, but many stamina, joined in form of a column at 
their base, but separated above, having erect summits. Tlie females are col- 
lected in an oblong cone, each scale inclosing two, which have no carolla, a 
small germen with a single stigma. These are succeeded by membrana- 
ceous winged seeds. 

244. We call every thing Fir, whether it be of the Pi7ie 
sort or of the Spruce ; but, as the manner of propagating 
and planting of both descriptions are the same, I shall not 
encumber my work by an useless division in this respect. I 
shall treat of Pines and Spruce all under one and the same 
head. I will give here, however, from Miller, the bota- 
nical characters of the Pine species. 



The Fir. 



PINE. 

In Latin, Pinus ; in French, Pin, 

245. The botanical characters are: — ^The male floAvers are collected in a scaly 
conical bunch ; they have no petals, but many stamina^ which are connected 
at their base, but divided at the top, terminated by erect summits ; these are 
included in the scales, which supply the want of petals and empalements. 
The female flowers are collected in a common oval cone, and stand at a dis- 
tance from the male on the same tree. Under each scale of the cone are 
produced two flowers, which have no petals, but a small germen supporting 
an awl-shaped style, crowned by a single stigma. The germen becomes 
afterwards an oblong ovai nut, crowned with a wing included in the rigid scale 
of the cone. 

246. All Firs^ both descriptions, bear their seed in cones, 
which, like most other things, ripen in the autumn. If they 
be suffered to hang on the tree, and do not fall down before 
the next summer, the warmth of the sun opens them ; and 
the seeds, which are furnished with a httle wing, fall out, 
and are borne away by the wind ; and they will sometimes 
come up, and grow into trees, if they be shaded a little 
from the sun, and sheltered from the drying winds. You, 
therefore, gather or pick up the cones in November, or 
sometime before the spring ; dry them well, and put them 
by till about March. Being then exposed to the sun, or 
laid near to a warm fire, the scales of the cones burst open, 
and the seeds come out. If suffered to remain in the cone, 
by not being exposed to heat, the seeds will remain good 
for a dozen, or, perhaps, for twenty years ; but, if taken out 
of the cones, they will not keep good for more than a year 
or two 3 or, at least, this is generally the case. 



247. As to the manner of sowing these seeds, which work 
is to be done as early in the spring as the ground will work 



The Fir. 



well (which generally is about the middle of March), you 
prepare the ground in the manner directed for receiving 
the seeds of the Ash, for which see paragraphs 109 and the 
following; with this material difference, however: that, in 
case of fir-beds, the alleys, for a reason by and by to be 
mentioned, ought to be two feet wide at the least. The 
ground, when the beds are formed, ought to be made very 
fine ; and if the earth were sifted on, it would be the better, 
because these seeds are very tender, and do not come up 
well in rough ground. When the beds are prepared, you 
sow the seeds on them pretty thickly. If the weather be 
very windy, it is convenient to mix the seeds with sand that 
is rather damp 3 and, indeed, it were not amiss if this were 
done in all sorts of weather, especially in the case of the 
smaller seeds, which are very apt to fall out of the hand in 
great quantities in particular places. 

248. The seed being sowed, pat it gently down with the 
back of the spade, and then cover it with sifted mould taken 
out of the alleys. This mould should not be more than an 
inch in depth, and should be put on with great evenness. 

249. If the weather be dry, water the beds with a fine 
rosed watering-pot, but by no means do this until the 
ground be -perfectly dry ; for, if you water while the earth 
is fresh from its recent removal, it nms together and 
becomes baked by the sun, which is very injurious to the 
coming up of the plants, which would begin to appear in 
about six weeks ; and then all your pains are thrown away, 
unless you keep off the JArds, which are mortal enemies of 
everything bearing the name of Fir-seeds. Your precautions 
on this score must not wait till you can see the seeds break- 
ing the ground. The finches will make the discovery long 
before you will. They smell the seeds under the ground. 



The Fik. 



and they watch their appearance with an assiduity beyond 
behef. No eye is Hke that of a bird; otherwise^ how does 
a pigeon, that is actually up in the clouds, discover grain 
scattered upon the earth? The finches from the neigh- 
bouring trees, or, if there be no trees, by flying over the 
garden, ascertain all that is going forward. You cannot 
protect yourself by mats ; because the seeds, if they came 
np imder the mats, would be so weak as to perish. If you 
put the mats on by day, and take them off by night, the 
birds will be on the beds and have finished their work in 
the morning before you can get a human being to the spot. 
Glass is out of the question in such a case; and therefore 
you must have nets, the meshes of which are too small 
for a finch to get its head through. These nets must 
be put over rods bent in a semicircular form across the 
beds, with other rods tied upon them long- ways, so that 
the bed will have a covering resembling the tilt of a wag- 
gon. Then you must take care that the lower edges of 
the net be pinned down closely to the ground, all the way 
along on both sides; so that there be not a single hole left, 
at which a bird can creep in. Besides the birds, there are 
the mice, equally fond of these seeds. They get at them 
even before they break the ground. They set nets at defi- 
ance ; and whereas the others work by day, these gentry 
work by night. Traps, poison, all sorts of means, but live- 
traps baited with cheese, particularly, you must resort to, 
especially if you be near a shrubbery, or a grass-ground, or 
any place that harbours the mice. Without these precau- 
tions, it is perfectly useless to sow the seed. I had some 
beds last summer, of both Pine and Spruce. I have pro- 
bably fifty thousand plants ; and 1 am perfectly convinced 
that if I had left the beds wholly uncovered, and had 
made use of no mean to destroy the mice, I should not 
have had one single 'plant. As it was, I lost much more 



The Fir. 

than half, and thought myself hicky to preserve what 
remained. 

250. Tlie plants should be kept perfectly clear from 
weeds, watered gently in dry weather daring the summer, 
and the ground between the plants should be moved a little 
gently now and then, so as to give the plants the benefit of 
the dews. The wide alley will give scope for all this work, 
and for the netting and mouse-catching. If you take a 
narrower space than two feet, you will sometimes trample 
the edges of the beds, and will be apt to disturb the edges 
by fixing in the ends of the hooped rods. 

251. If the plants be taken proper care of, and if the 
ground be suitable to them, they will in general be two or 
three inches high by the month of October. They ought 
to stand in the beds another year ; for they are so very 
small, as to make it extremely difficult to transplant tliem, 
in a proper manner, the first year. 

252. Having now brought the plants to the age at which 
they are to be removed from the seed-bed, I proceed to 
give directions for the removal. The preparation of the 
ground in the nursery is precisely the same as for the Ash ; 
but the plants must be taken up with the greatest care, and 
there must be no pruning of roots, except just at the point 
of the long middle root. The work shoidd be done in 
October or in March, and not in winter. The plants ought 
to be removed in such a way as to shake but little of the 
earth from the fibres; and, above all things, the roots must 
be close kept from sun and wind. 

253. The plants ought to stand in the nursery but one 
year, or two at most, before they go into plantations, where 



The Fir. 

the work of planting ought to be clone in the manner 
directed for the Ash. If amongst heath or furze or rochs, 
there must, of course, be mere holes, instead of trenching. 
But the work of planting is still to be done in the same 
manner, only extraordinary care taken to keep the roots, 
while out of ground, from the sun and wind. 

254. But, in the case of Firs, of any description (and the 
same may be said of the Cedar and the Cypress), there is 
no need of any nursery at all; and the best way is, to let 
them stand, not too thickly, two years in the seed-bed, and 
then put them, at once, into plantations. They will not be 
above seven or eight inches high ; but they will be ten feet 
high before plants, put out at four feet high, will have 
attained the height of seven or eight feet. This Miller saw 
proved in numerous instances, and I am sure of the fact 
from repeated experience, and from the observation of my 
whole life. 

255. With regard to the distances in the plantation, some- 
thing must depend upon the sort of Fir, and upon the uses 
to which the plantation is destined ; and the Spruces spread, 
in their early stages, wider than the Pines, and, therefore, 
might reasonably have more room. Four feet for the lat- 
ter and five for the former may, generally speaking, be a 
good distance ; for, though they never can become large 
trees at these degrees of closeness, they draw each other 
up, shelter each other from cutting winds, and ri?e faster 
than if at wide distances. They should, however, be thinned 
out before their boughs interfere with each other; first tak- 
ing out every second tree throughout the plantation, and, 
next, all that remain in every other row. Even at this dis- 
tance, they will not attain a very great height; but, at every 
thinning, they will get more and more room, while those 



The Fir. 



that are cut out will yield a profit^ and, generally, a great 
profit. The first thinnings will yield poles; the second, 
rafters for out or temporary buildings ; and the subsequent 
cuttings will, if the sort be pretty good, make narrow boards, 
and stuff for various useful purposes. 

256. Firs will grow on the poorest of land, though not so 
well as on good land. The Spruces come chiefly from the 
barren rocky lands of North America ; and the lands, where 
the Pines of America abound, are actually called Pine- 
barrens, The Firs do not much like clay-land ; but they 
will grow on it very well, and especially the Spruce-Firs. 
Certainly, as articles of projit, they ought to be allowed 
none but the worst lands ; for they yield in value of pro- 
duce to almost every other sort of tree, if both be planted 
upon tolerably good ground. 

257. Firs, if in a close plantation, ought to be kept pruned, 
and according to the rule in paragraphs 127 Jind 149. The 
prunings, tied up in fagots, pay well for the labour, and 
they are by no means bad fuel for lime-kilns and brick- 
kilns, and will burn better green than dry, whicb is a great 
advantage. But, in this work of pruning, care ought to be 
taken to cut close to the trunk, and with a sharp knife. 

258. When Firs are felled, their stems and roots ought 
to be grubbed up ; for, like the Cedars and the Cypress, 
the stems never throw out shoots; and these stems encum- 
ber the ground, and do a great deal of mischief. It is the 
same with the stems (or moors as they are sometimes called) 
of all trees) but the stems of deciduous trees will generally 
throw out new shoots, some of which, as in the case of the 
Oak, will become trees ; but Firs never throw out any shoots 
at all : when once cut down, they are gone for ever. When 



Thk Fir. 



Firs lose, from any cause, their leading shoot, the remaining 
part of that shoot ought to be cut clean out with a sharp 
knife ; and they will presently, in one of the side- branches, 
find a new leader, without giving you any trouble. 

259. There remains now, under this head, little more to 
do than to give a list of the several sorts of Firs that I think 
worth planting in England ; just observing here, that the 
Larch is to be spoken of in its proper place, and that the 
Cedar of Lebanon, which is certainly a Fir, is, in all respects, 
propagated and cultivated like the Fir, but that, though a 
most magnificent ornamental tree, never can, from the 
badness of its timber, be planted as an article of profit. I 
shall begin with the Spruce Firs, and then come to the 
Pines. 

260. 1. The Norway Spruce Fir {Abies Picea), which 
has a large long cone, and is very common in England. 
2. The Balm of Gilead Fir (Mies Balsamica) , which has 
a shorter cone and thicker leaf. 3. The White Spruce 
of North America {Abies Jlba), with a narrow cone about 
an inch and a half long. 4. The American Black or 
Double Spruce {Abies ISigra), with a cone about an inch 
and a quarter long, and bigger round than the last-men- 
tioned. 5. The American Silver Fir {Abies Balsamifera), 
The cone of this Fir is about three inches long, and the tips of 
the scales are of a silver-like colour. The leaves are white on 
the under side, so that this is a very beautiful tree. 6. The 
Hemlock Spruce {Abies Canadensis). The leaves of this 
Spruce are shorter and smaller than those of the other sorts, 
and the cone is not much more than half an inch long, and 
proportionably small in circumference. 

261. With regard to the first of these, namely, the Nor- 



The Fill. 



way Spruce, it produces the deals that come from that 
country, and it grows sometimes to the height of 150 feet. 
The second and fifth sorts, which differ but little from each 
other, do not appear to be of much use, except as orna- 
mental trees. The first is of European origin, and it is 
said to grow very high ; but that of America rarely exceeds 
forty feet in height, and the wood, according to Michaux, 
is inferior to that of the other Spruces. The third sort, 
namely, Abies Alba, is also called the Single Spruce : it 
rarely exceeds the height of fifty feet ; its timber is inferior 
to that of the Black Spruce, and its boughs are not good 
for the making of spruce beer. The fourth sort, namely, 
the Ameiican Black or Double Spruce^ is a very valuable 
tree : it attains the height of seventy or eighty feet, while 
the diameter of the bottom of the trunk does not exceed 
above twenty inches. It is used as masts for ships, and is 
exceedingly useful in this respect. The knees of vessels 
are, at Boston, sometimes made of the Black Spruce, formed 
by the base of the trunk and one of the principal roots. 
MrcHAUX says that it is tougher than the White Pine, but 
more liable to crack. The tree will flourish in the coldest 
and poorest of land; and Michaux says that the wood has 
been proved to be, in Europe, superior to the Norway 
Pine. The twigs of this tree are boiled in water, with a 
certain quantity of treacle or sugar, and the mixture is left 
to ferment. When the fermentation is over, the beer is fit 
to drink. The essence of Spruce is obtained by boiling the 
ends of the young branches in water, and then evaporating 
the water by boiling, until you have an extract left ; and 
this extract is the essence of Spruce, which is brought to 
England in great quantities, but which might be made here 
as well as in America. This being a matter of some little 
im[)ortance, I ought to mention that Michaux notices, that 
Sir a. B. Lambert asserts that it is the White Spnicc 



The Fir. 



which is made use of for this purpose, but that he, Michaux, 
had seen the process of making the beer many times, and 
that it was always made of the Black Spruce, and not of the 
White; to which I can add my not very little experience, 
having had no other sort of drink, except by mere accident, 
for seven years of my life. The copper in which we used to 
boil our beer, was built at the foot of a high and steep rock, 
which was covered with these Black Spruces. We used 
first to cut down the trees, then chop oft' the branches, or 
rather the points of the branches, then tie these up into 
little fagots, and toss them from the top of the rock down 
into the copper, jocosely dignifying the article by the name 
of malt ; when it had boiled sufficiently along with the 
treacle, we used to let it ferment, then take it out (each 
company having its allowance per day), carry it in open 
tubs (old pork barrels), to our quarters, and the plenty 
was such, that each man came when he liked with the 
bottom of an old canteen, or some other such article, and 
regaled himself, upon the proceeds of these boughs ; so 
that few people understand more about this matter than 
I do; and I agree with Monsieur Michaux, that it is the 
Black and not the White Spruce, that is used for this pur- 
pose. This is also a singularly beautiful tree ; its branches 
extend out in a horizontal direction. The summit is a re- 
gular pyramid, and, in all respects, this appears to me to 
be the best of the Spruces. The sixth sort, or Hemlock 
Spruce, is a native of the same country, attains about the 
same height (about /O or 80 feet), is deemed a very beau- 
tiful tree, grows to a larger bulk in the trunk, is very much 
esteemed as an ornamental tree in the United States of 
America ; it is in fact, in look, a spiral Yew tree, only, perhaps, 
ten times as high ; and, though the properties of its wood are 
such as to make it the least valuable as timber of all the 
large resinous trees of North America, its hark is used for 



The Fir. 

tanning In the countries wliere it grows ; and, though it is 
doubtless inferior to the bark of the Oak, it is used for the 
tanning of leather, and very good and substantial leather 
comes from the process. It is used for this purpose at 
Boston and New Providence, and even in the State of New 
York; and, Michaux says, sometimes so far south as 
Baltimore. It is brought from the North, that is to say, 
from the district of Maine, to the parts of the United States 
just mentioned. Its deep red colour is imparted to the 
leather ; and, Michaux says, that he has been informed 
by tanners, that though of itself it is inferior to the Oak 
bark, the two species united are better than either of them 
alone. 

262. As to the Pines, Miller coxmt'^ fourteen sorts, and 
Michaux adds several that Miller knew nothing about. 
It would be useless to make particular mention of each of 
these. I shall therefore notice only, first, the Scotch Pine 
or Fir, {Pinus Sylvestm,) 2. The Norway Red Pine. 
{Pirns Rubra.) 3. The American White Pink, {Pinus 
Strobus) ; and, 4. The American Pitch Pine, {Pinus 
Rigida) . 

263. As to the first of these, the Scotch Fir, every body 
in England knows too much about it, seeing that it now 
covers hundreds of thousands of acres that might have been 
covered by some valuable Pine, or by some other tree; for 
I know of no ground where the Scotch Fir will grow, on 
which Birch or Locust would not grow. The second, 
namely, the Norway Red Pine, is that which produces 
the best timber ; the same Pine is found in abundance in 
America, and is there also called the Red Pine. It attains 
the height of seventy or eighty feet, and two feet or more 
of diameter at its base. The cone is small, not being more 



The Fir. 



than one inch and a quarter long-, and small in its girt in 
proportion. The timber makes good masts for ships; 
MicHAux states, that the main-mast of the St. Lawrence, 
a ship of fifty guns, built by the French at Quebec, was of 
this Pine. While young, the Red Pine has a beautiful 
aspect, and its vegetation is always vigorous. Some have 
spoken disparagingly of its timber; but Michaux says, that 
it has a fine compact grain, and that in Canada and Nova 
Scotia it is highly esteemed for its strength and durability. 
The third, namely, the White Pine, is one of the largest 
and finest of trees. The cone is something of the shape 
of the long spruce cone, and is not at all compact, but 
loose and rough. Michaux says, that he measured two 
trunks that had been felled for canoes, one of which was 
154 feet long, and fifty-four inches in diameter. He says, 
that he has found the largest trees of it in the best land, but 
that it will thrive in any land that he knows any thing of. 
He does not speak so highly of the wood. He has observed, 
that it is the foremost in taking possession of barren desert 
lands, and the most hardy in resisting the impetuous gales 
of the ocean. The wood is so clear fi'om knots, that it is 
very much in use where great strength and hardness is not 
required. Immense quantities of this timber are sent, in one 
shape or other, to almost all parts of the world. The fourth, 
namely, the American Pitch Pine. The cone of this pine 
is about an inch and a quarter long. The tree attains the 
height of seventy or eighty feet, and a diameter of from 
twenty to thirty inches. Michaux does not speak highly 
of the wood, but says, that from this tree abundance of pitch 
is procured. 

264. It would be useless to state particulars relative to 
any of the remainder of the long list of Pines ; and, as 
I have before given directions for collecting the seed, and 



The Gum Tree. 



for doing every thing else, until the trees be put out into 
plantations, I have only to add here, that if seed be pro- 
cured either at home or abroad, care should be taken 
that the eones be ripe before they be gathered ; for, if 
they be not ripe, they will not open when laid in the sun, 
and if they were to open the seed would not grow. When 
the seed is once got out, the sooner it is sowed the better; 
but, as was before observed, if you cannot sow the seed the 
spring after you have collected the cones, the best way is 
to keep the cones unopened until the next year. 



THE aXTTil THEE. 

In Latin, Liquidamber Styraciflua ; in French, Copalm. 

2f>5. The Botanical characters are : — It has male and female flowers some- 
times on the same plant, and at other times upon different plants ; the male 
flowers are numerous, disposed in long loose conical katkins; these have 
four-leaved empalements, but no petals. They have a great number of short 
stamina joined in one body, which are convex on one side, but plain on the 
other, terminated by erect twin summits, with four furrows. The female 
flowers are often situated at the base of the male-spike, collected in a globe ; 
these have a double erapalement like that of the male, and each of them has 
a bell-shaped, angular, distinct empalement, with many protuberances. They 
have no petals, but an oblong germen fastened to the empalement, support- 
ing two awl-shaped styles, to which is also iixed the recurved stigmas, which 
are hairy, and as long as the styles. The empalement afterwards turns to 
a roundish capsule of one cell, with two valves at the top, which are acute, 
and collected in a ligneous globe, containing oblong acute-pointed seeds. 

266. The Gum-tree (sometimes called the Sweet Gum) 
I do not recommend to be planted in England as a forest 
tree, there are so many others which are, in all respects, 
preferable to it; but it is so very beautiful a tree; the colour 
of the leaf, both when green and when it dies; the shape 
of the leaf, the form of the tree, are all so beautiful, and the 



The Gum Tr^e. 



tree is so harmless as to the herbage beneath it; it would 
be so ornamental to parks,' and near to houses, that I think 
it right to speak of the manner of raising it. 

267. The SEED is contained in a round cone or ball, 
about the size of a small walnut, but perfectly round, and 
having prickles on the outside of it. When this ball is laid 
in the sun, or near a fire, these prickles, which close up 
apertures in the ball, yield away from each other, and leave 
the apertures open for the seed to come out. If you do not 
receive the balls soon enough in the spring to sow the seed 
the same year, do not endeavour to get out the seed until 
next year, for the seed, like that of the Firs, will not keep 
well out of the cone. 

268. As to sowing, turn back to the directions given 
for sowing the seed of the Fir, and sow the seed of the Gum 
Tree in precisely the same manner, but not nearly so 
thick 3 cover the beds with nets also ; for I have perceived 
that both mice and birds are very active enemies of this 
seed. The seed should be covered no deeper than has been 
directed in the case of the Fir, and the earth ought to be 
equally fine ; for it is a very tender seed, and does not easily 
come through ground that is stiff or rough. When the 
young plants come up, great care must be taken not to 
loosen the earth too much about them when you pull up 
the weeds ; and, after a weeding, there should always be a 
gentle watering, if the weather be dry. The season for 
sowing is that of the Fir. 

269. In October, the plants will be about six inches 
high. Their removal into the nursery, and their manage- 
ment there, are precisely the same as directed in the case 
of the Ash. The Gum has a very bushy rootj and there- 



L 



The Hawthorn. ^ 

fore it is removed with great ease and safety. As it will 
generally be wanted as single trees, or as clumps in p-'vl s, 
it ma}', if required, stand in the nursery till it be four orfi^ e 
feet high, and it will, even then, remove very well. Tlii> 
tree would be beautiful in clumps, where it might be 
planted at four feet distances, and thinned out in the manner 
before several times directed for other deciduous trees. 

2/0. Of the WOOD of this tree, Michaux :!c-s >iot 
speak highly, but the contrary. He says, it yields in pciiit 
of quality (though in making articles of household furnittu'e 
it is frequently used), to the Black Walnut and Wjld 
Cherry ; but that still it is frequently used for such articles, 
but particularly in the making of bedsteads. Michaux 
adds, that this tree has grown for some time in France ; but 
that it uever has been known to ripen its seed in Europ.\ 



THE S[ATr*r2IC>'^J 

In Latiiij Mespilus ; in French, Auheyine. 

271. The Botanical characters are : — This tree is a species of the Medlar. 
The empalement of the flower is permanent, of one leaf cut into five spreading 
concave segments. The flower is composed of five roundish concave petals, 
Avhich are inserted in the empalement. The number of stamina are different 
in the several species ; from ten to twenty or more ; these are also inserted 
in the empalement, and are terminated by single summits. The g:) • is 
situated under the flower, and supports an uncertain number of styles, Irom 
three to five, which are crowned by headed stigmas. The germen afterwards 
becomes a roundish berry, carrying the empalement on its top, and enclosing 
four or five hard seeds. 

272. If we all knew how to propagate and cultivate this 
tree as well as we know the height and the size of the tree, 
and the leaf the flower and the thorns that it bears, I miglit 
leave this name without any i-emarks appended to it; ' 



The Hawthorn. 



j« in fact a tree or shrub of very great importance in this 
country, and the propagation and cultivation of it deserve 
I^articular attention, which attention, therefore, they shall 
rer^eive at my hands. 

373. The SEED is, in the first place, a little red thing 
in the shape of a Medlar, which becomes ripe in the month 
of October. The seeds should be gathered then, or beaten 
off the bushes, or the birds soon take them all away. 
When the seeds are collected, they should be put directly 
m:o some safe place, mixed with sand rather wet, three 
b .hels of sand to one bushel of berries, and should be kept 
treated in exactly the same way as directed for the 
ting and the keeping of the seed of the Ash, for which 
paragraph 10/. 

274. When the time arrives for sowing, which will be 
tiie second month of March after it has been gathered, the 
seed ought to be sown in precisely the same manner as 
directed for the Ash, in paragraphs 111, 112, and 113. 
When the seeds come up, and even before they come up, 
take particular pains to keep them clear of weeds j and, as 
li s just been mentioned for the Gum tree, if you weed in 
dry weather, give a gentle watering on the beds after the 
weeding has been done, to settle the ground again which 
has been moved near the roots of the young plants. If the 
ground be good, and proper care has been taken during 
the summer, the plant will be six inches high before the 
p^-i h cf October; but you must treat the plants well, or 
el.o rhey will not. 

275. In removing the plants into the nursery there will 
be 1) ) great rufficnlty; for they have good roots, and they 

ve very well 3 but, in this c-'i'e, very great cr.re must 
L 2 



The Hawthorn. 



be taken to assort the plants well; to class them into 
strong ones and weak ones ; and, perhaps, three classes 
would be better than two. It is of the greatest consequence 
in the putting these plants finally out, that there be no 
mixture of weak plants and strong plants 3 because when 
the plants come to go into hedges, the strong plants will 
overtop the weak ones, and leave gaps, which can never be 
very easily closed up again; the weaker plants may stand 
a year or two longer in the nursery than the strong ones 
according to the purposes for which they are wanted. 

276. No one makes a jolantation of Hawthorns. The 
great use of the tree is to make hedges, commonly called 
Quickset Hedges. The age of the plants for this work, 
and the manner of doing the work, are detailed at full 
length in paragraphs 34 to 37 inclusive, to which the 
reader will be pleased here to refer; but, in that part of 
the work, having spoken of a high bank whereon to plant the 
hedge, T ought to mention here, that precisely the same in- 
structions are to be followed if the hedges are to be planted 
on the level ground. 

277' plants are wanted to make part of a shrubbery, 
or to become standard trees in a park or a lawn, they 
should be pruned up the sides as they proceed, in the nur- 
sery, where they should not stand above four or five years, and 
they should have one removal in the nursery, and one sum- 
mer's growth there, the year before they be finally removed. 
This will give them a bush root ; there will be little of the 
root to amputate at the final removal; and they will strike 
off in the new ground, if they be carefully planted there ; 
that is to say, if the work of planting be performed in the 
manner directed in the case of the Ash. If thus planted, 
they will start afresh with very little check. 



The Hazel. 



278. When Hawthorns are planted out singly, or in 
clumps of three or four, it is very desirable that, to their 
other great beauties of leaf and flower, they add that of a 
straight stem. This a transplanted Hawthorn never will 
have, if the transplantion of it take place at too advanced an 
age. Five years old is quite old enough ; for, if they be 
tall, the wind blows them on one side, and they become 
and remain leaning and unsightly things. If they do lean 
on one side, and cannot be easily restored to an erect posi- 
tion, they ought to be cut down to the ground, and a new 
stem sutFered to come up. 

279. The wood of the White Thorn, or Hawthorn, is 
very hard and compact ; and, when it attains to any consi- 
derable size, it is used for most of the purposes which have 
been spoken of as those to which the wood of the Crab is 
usually destined. As underwood, it produces mere bushes ; 
and it ought not to be suffered to interfere with the other 
underwoods. 



In Latin, Coryhis ; in French, Noisettiers. 

280. The botanical characters are : — It has male and female flowers grow- 
ing at remote distances on the same tree. The male flowers are produced in 
long scaly katkins, each scale including a single flower, having no petals, 
but eight short stamina fastened to the side of the scale, and terminated by 
oblong erect summits. The female flowers are included in the future bud, 
sitting close to the branches ; these have a thick two-leaved perianthiuni, 
torn on the border, sitting under the flower when it is small, but it is after- 
wards enlarged to the size of the fruit ; it has no petal, but a small roundish 
germen occupies the centre, supporting two bristly coloured styles, which 
are laxger than the erapalement, crowned by single stigmas. The germen 
afterwards becomes an oval nut, shaved at the base and compressed at the 
top, ending in a point. 



The Hazel. 

281. This, which is one of our most useful underwoods, 
is the common Tree, which is too well known to us all 
to make any very particular description of its height, size, 
form, leaf, or any thing else belonging to it, necessary in 
this place. There are several varieties of the nut, amongst 
which are the Cob and the Filbert ; but the whole are pro- 
pagated and cultivated in the same manner; except that, if 
fruit be the object, you must propagate by suckers or layers, 
and not from the nut ; for, if Cob-nuts or Filberts be sowed, 
the fruit of the trees which come from them will, in all pro- 
bability, be nothing more than the common nut. I mention 
this incidentally, for these are matters of horticulture, and 
have nothing to do with the rearing of timber trees' and 
underwood. 

282. As underwood, the Hazel is a very useful plant. It 
does not grow so fast as the Ash, as the Birch, as the 
Chesnut, or as the Willow; but it produces a prodigious 
number of shoots from its stem : it will bear the shade bet- 
ter than almost any other underwood ; and, though its 
shoots do not grow to poles, they make the best of rods, 
small hoops, hurdles, hethers to hedges, very good stakes, 
and are good for many minor purposes, particularly for the 
making of vent-pegs. 

283. The Hazel grows best upon what is called a hazle- 
mould : that is to say, mould of a reddish brown ; but it will 
grow almost any^vhere, from a chalk or gravel to a cold and 
wet clay ; but the rods are durable in proportion to the 
dryness of the ground on which the Hazel grows, and they 
are particularly good where the bottom is chalk. I have, 
indeed, seen very beautiful coppices, with Hazel rods as 
thick as they could stand, in a soil not more than from four 
to six inches deep, a poor hungry soil too, lying upon a bed 



The Hazel, 

of chalk. Ill the north of Haiii[)shirc are the Ihiest coppices 
I have ever seen of Hazel : there, on the sides or on the tops 
of some of the bleakest hills in England, you see innumera- 
ble coppices of this wood, and generally very fine. The 
Hazel splits freely, and is, therefoi:e, peculiarly calculated 
for hurdles and hoops; and, in the country last-mentioned, 
hurdles are made of split rods in the neatest manner. 

284. The seed of the Hazel is the nut, so well known to 
every body in England. Some years these nuts are very 
scarce, but in other years they are altogether as abundant. 
In 1826, at the great fair of Weyhill, which takes place in 
October, it was supposed that there were more sacks of nuts 
(each holding four bushels) than there were at the same 
fair, pockets of hops, though from that fair the whole of the 
West of England is supplied with hops. In such a year^ 
therefore, the nuts, when ripe, can be obtained at the ex- 
pense of about twenty shillings a sack, when taken out of 
the green husks that cover them. A part of these will 
always prove bad, and will not grow ; bnt, supposing a 
fourth part to be of this description, three bushels contain 
a prodigious number of nuts. 

285. When you have the nuts collected, they ought, like 
the Beech nuts and Chesnuts, to be laid in the sun till per- 
fectly dry ; and then they ought to be put into dry sand, in 
the manner directed for the Beech nuts and the Chesnuts^ 
to which the reader will be pleased to turn back. You 
ought to move them once every month, to see whether they 
have become damp ; and if so, they ought to be put in a 
dryer place. The greatest care must be taken to preserve 
them, for they are very apt to spoil. 



286. As to the SOWING, they might be sowed in ploughed 



The Hazel. 

ground, which is intended to be the coppice, being sowed 
over the ground like wheat or barley, only more thinly, of 
course ; and this would do very well, as it would in the case 
of many other trees, if there were any magic spell to keep 
the weeds from coming ; but the nut-plant is a very tender 
plant when young, as tender as a radish, and is presently 
covered over by weeds; and perhaps by sowing a whole 
field of ten acres, you would not obtain ten trees. 

287. Plantations must, therefore, be made from plants 
raised by sowing the seed. The manner of sowing the seed, 
and the time of sowing it, are, and for the same reasons, 
precisely those mentioned in the case of the Beech nut. 
The covering is to be of the same thickness, but the beds 
should be kept clear of weeds with still greater care ; and, 
in pulling out the weeds, greater care should be taken not 
to disturb the plants, which, if thus managed, and watered 
now and then lightly in the evening in very dry weather, 
will be from four to seven inches high in the month of 
October, 

288. They will come out of the seed-bed with a very 
bushy root, which will merely want tipping with a sharp 
knife ; and then the plants are to be sorted, putting the 
strong ones by themselves and the weak ones by them- 
selves, for the reasons before mentioned. 

289. The distances in the plantation should, I think, be 
those of rows of five feet apart, the plants five feet apart in 
the row; the plants of one row coming opposite to the mid- 
dle of the intervals in the other row. If the ground were 
very good, the distances might be still greater; for the Hazel 
stem spreads very widely, and soon fills up a great space. 
As to the cultivation of the ground, the cutting down of 



The Hazel. 



the plants to form stems, the felling of the coppice, and the 
application of the crop, all are the same as those mentioned 
under the head of Asn ; except that, in the case of the 
Hazel, no plants are ever left to become treesj and none are 
ever intended for poles, 

290. Before a man plant a coppice, he ought to consider, 
and indeed he naturally will consider, the country the cop- 
pice is situated in, and the probable demand for the different 
sorts of the produce of underwood. Surrounded by the 
hop-grounds of Kent, or any other part of England where 
there are hop-grounds, poles will be his principal object ; 
and then the Ash, the Chesnut, and, in wet situations, the 
Willow and the Alder, he will naturally look to as the 
things to plant. Near to great towns. Birch he will con- 
sider as a desirable article ; in sheep countries, amidst the 
downs, where the folding of sheep is the great source of 
manure and of crops of corn, rods and hurdles will be the 
objects of his coppice; and here he will want Hazel, and 
here, too, he will find a sort of soil on which the best Hazel 
grows. 

291. The Hazel coppice, like others, is cut down when 
the leaf is off, and the cutting always ought to cease by the 
first of March, and all coppices ought to be quite cleared by 
the twenty-fifth of that month. The age of the Hazel, when 
it will be fit for the purposes above-mentioned on dry ground, 
is from ten to twelve years ; but it ought not to be cut till 
the rods are at the proper size. The whole of the rods will 
not be at that size at the end even of twelve years ; but, if 
the coppice stand too long, the prime rods will have become 
too big : and thus a loss of time, as well as of crop, will have 
been occasioned. 



In Latin, Juglans Tomentosa ; in French^ Hickorie. 

292. The I>otanical characters are : — It has male and female flowers at 
separate distances on the same tree. The male flowers are disposed in 
an oblong rope or katkin, which is cylindrical and imbricated, with spaces 
between the scales ; each side has one flower, with one petal fixed in the 
outer centre, toward the outside of the scale. The petal is divided into six 
equal parts ; in the centre is situated many short stamina, terminated by erect 
acute summits. The female flowers grow in small clusters, sitting close to 
the branches ; these have a short, erect, four-pointed empaleraent, sitting on 
the germen, and an acute erect petal, divided into four parts. Under the 
empalement sits a large dry oval berry, with one cell, inclosing a large oval 
nut with netted furrows, the kernel of which has four lobes which are vari- 
ously formed. 

293. There are divers sorts or varieties of the Hickory. 
MicHAUx counts no less than eight varieties of this tree; 
but the Americans make no distinction, except that of the 
Shelbark Hickory Nut and the Hard Hickory Nut. 
The wood appears to be pretty nearly the same in them all. 
Some of the trees grow higher than the others; but the 
Shelbark grows to the height of eighty or one hundred 
feet, but never with a very thick stem or trunk, seldom 
more than two feet or two feet and a half in diameter. The 
tree grows in America, in all sorts of ground, from the 
deepest and richest valleys to the highest and poorest hills. 
The tree, as an object to look at, is exceedingly beautiful, 
loaded with leaves of a fine airy shape, and of a bright 
green, turning yellow with the first frosts of the autumn, 
and hanging upon the tree sas completely as if green, 
for a month or six weeks after they have become of a bright 



The Hickory. 

yellow -J having, as to its autimiiial foliage, nothing to ex- 
ceed it, except the Sassafras, which is still more thickly 
covered with leaves, those leaves still more beautifully 
formed, and their yellow of the autumn of a brighter dye. 

294. The wood of the Hickory is not good for buildings, 
but it is excellent for a great many uses : for the making 
of tool- handles of all sorts ; for the making of fishing-rods, 
of whip-handles, of handspikes^ and of every thing which 
requires great hardness and toughness. Michaux gives 
instances of it having lasted under water for a great num- 
ber of years ; and I have a piece of wood now in my posses- 
sion, recently sent me from New York, a certificate attend- 
ing which shows that it had been under water for more 
than FIFTY YEARS. For toughness and suppleness, this 
wood surpasses all others. The back-bows of wooden 
chairs are made of this wood, not of a young tree, but of 
a piece cut out of a plank. The great broad hoops that go 
round the masts of ships are made of Hickory wood, first 
sawed out of a plank, then planed ; and the best wooden 
hoops in the world, for barrels and tubs, are made of 
HicK'oRY. So tough is this wood, that, in New England, 
they take thin strips of it, and work them together into 
well-ropes and clothes lines, one of which last I bought when 
I was last in America. It is used for axletrees for carts and 
waggons. It may bend, but it takes a weight or a force of 
an extraordinary nature to break a piece of Hickory as big 
as one's wrist. This tree has been so hunted after for its 
various uses, and especially as fuel, of which it is the best 
that ever was known, that Michaux seems to think that 
Xhe whole race will be destroyed in America in a very few 
years; and indeed, where there is navigable water leading 
to a considerable town, the slaughter of this tree has been 
without mercy. 



The Hickory. 



295. As underwood, the Hickory would be invaluable as 
hoops. It is made use of, as I said before, for all purposes 
where toughness and suppleness are wanted ; for tool-han- 
dles, cogs of wheels not exposed to wet ; for the wood does 
not last long, if exposed at the same time to the air and wet. 
It is used for the teeth of wooden rakes and harrows, and its 
surpasses our Crab in clubs, walking-sticks, and the swin- 
gles of flails. It is always used in bows of ox-yokes. You 
must absolutely beat a stick of it to pieces. It will come 
to pieces in little shreds, in time, but nothing will break it. 
It is employed, above all things, for wooden hoops of every 
sort ; and it is always used, where it can be obtained, in the 
forming the hoops of casks and boxes, for which purpose 
immense quantities are used in the United States, and ex- 
ported to the West India Islands. These cask-hoops are 
made of young Hickories coming from the seed, and cut 
down at the height of from six to twelve feet, without any 
choice as to the different varieties of this tree. My barrels 
come from America with hoops sometimes made of young 
Hickories and sometimes of the White Oak : the Hick- 
ories, however, Michaux says, are the best for this pur- 
pose ; because, although the White Oak is equally elastic, 
it is more apt to peel off in small shreds. 

296. A Hickory coppice would be an invaluable thing 
in England. When cut down the first time, the stems 
would send out two and three shoots; and if the distances 
were as directed for the Ash or the Birch, the produce of 
an acre would be from fifteen to twenty thousand hoops. 
It is said that the Hickory is of slow growth when young ; 
but this slowness of growth is only for the first two or three 
years: for I have one now at Kensington, which has been 
sowed five years, and which is now above seven feet high. 
They might be planted in coppices at three feet apart, 



Bjf which would give 4840 plants upon an acre. If these 
plants were properly treated^ they would, at the second 
cutting, yield from 20,000 to 40,000 hoops 5 because each 
rod is always split into two, and therefore makes two hoops. 

297. The plants should not, in this case, be cut down 
until the second year after planting; because, having so 
few fibres, and being so difficult to cause to strike, the 
plants do not get good root till the second year. When cut 
down, they would go up with a straight stem, and, in ten 
years, or thereabouts, would make good hoops. No other 
trees should be planted with the Hickory, because these 
latter grow so slowly at first, that the others would over- 
shadow them and keep them in a state of subjection. 

298. Now, as to the manner of propagating the Hickory, 
it is only by seed 5 and that seed is neither more nor less 
than a little Walnut, having a shell of different degrees of 
hardness, in the different varieties of the tree. The form 
of this Walnut, too, differs with these different varieties. 
The seed never, I believe, ripened in England; but it is 
easy to be obtained from America, anywhere to the south 
of the Province of Maine. These little Walnuts ought to 
be sown as early in the year as possible ; for, if sown late, 
many of them will not come up the first year. The manner 
of sowing is precisely that of the Ash 5 only the nuts, when 
laid upon the bed, should be patted down heavily with the 
spade, before they be covered ; so as to fix them firmly in 
the ground, and to prevent them from being washed out 
with heavy rains, or disturbed by worms. 

299. As to the preserving of the seeds, they may be tossed 
into a barrel like so many stones, and kept in any place 
where they are not absolutely wet. When the plants are 



The Hollv. 



year, and then they must stand two years in the seed-hed, 
for they are still too small to be removed until then. They 
must be moved into a nursery, and finally into hedges, or 
into shrubberies, with all the care and all the precaution 
pointed out in the case of the Cedars. 

304. The wood of the Holly is very hard, very close and 
fine-grained, and serves for many purposes where it is 
found of considerable size. It is used by cabinet-makers; 
takes a very brilliant polish, and is employed for inlaying 
mahogany furniture. It is good for the purpose of turneiy, 
and for making light screws, and Michaux tells us, that 
in America it is sometimes used for the pulleys or blocks 
of ships 3 but, in that country the tree grows larger, though 
its outward appearances are not very different from those 
of our tree. I have seen the Holly in both countries 
flourishing in every sort of soil, and generally I have seen 
the American Hollies much larger and more lofty than 
ever I saw it in England. Its principal use is the mak- 
ing of hedges, for which purpose it is excellent, at once the 
most ornamental, giving the most complete shelter, and 
forming the most effectual barrier against even the smallest 
of animals, of any fence consisting of trees or shrubs. To 
form a hedge, the Hollies should be planted at the same 
distances, and in the same manner, as directed for those of 
the Hawthorns ; but, like other evergreens, should never 
be moved, except early in September or in April. 

305. This tree is found in most of our coppices in England. 
When it produces long and straightish sticks, they are put 
by for whip-handles, being very tough in their young state. 
The stouter sticks are laid by for walking-sticks, or for 
swingles for flails, and the brush goes to the making of 
dead hedges, in which it will lie, with its leaves not perished, 



The Hornbeam. 

for three or four years. The Hollies should be cut down, 
not the first but the second year after they be planted out, 
because they do not strike readily, like the greater part of 
deciduous trees; and, in the pruning of the roots, follow 
the directions given in the case of the Firs; for here, the 
fibres are not to be cut off, but only the points of the long 
and straggling roots ; and the plants ought to be kept out 
of the ground, at every removal of them, as short a time as 
possible. 

In Latin, Carpimis ; in French, Charme. 

306. The botanical characters are : — It has male and female tiowers, grow- 
ing separately on the same plant. The male flowers are disposed in a cylin- 
drical rope, or katkin, which is loose and scaly, each scale covering one 
flower, which has no petals, but ten small stamina, terminated by compressed 
hairy summits. The female flowers are disposed in the same form, and are 
single under each scale ; these have one petal, which is shaped like a cup, cut 
into six parts, and two short germen, each having two hairy styles, crowned 
by a single stigma. The katkin afterwards grows large j and, at the base of 
each scale is lodged an oval angular nut. 

30/. There are three or four varieties of the Hornbeam, 
one of which, which comes from America, is called Iron 
Wood {Carpimis Osirya); and in England it is called the 
Hop-HoRNBEAM, bccausc its seeds come in a sort of cone, 
very much resembling a rather small and oblong hop. 
This, however, is an ornamental shrub, and, of course, does 
not come under our present inquiries. The common Horn- 
beam of America very much resembles our own in all re- 
spects, but MicHAUx says, that it is better for hedges, or, 
at least, more ornamental, as its branches are more nume- 
rous, and as its foliage is closer and more tufted. 

M 



The Hornbeam. 



308. The use of this tree is to form lofty hedges for the 
sheltering of kitchen gardens, and other such purposes ; 
the wood is very close and hard, and fine grained, and is 
sometimes used by turners for various purposes. It is also 
very good as fuel ; but the tree rarely attains any conside- 
rable height or bulk; and its great use is for the forming 
of hedges ; its shoots being so slender, and so numerous, 
that they admit of clipping like the hedges made of Haw- 
thorn, and a hedge, if well managed, may be kept thus 
from twenty to thirty feet high; and the leaf being very 
beautiful, and adhering to the tree almost through the 
winter, here is ornament as well as use. 

309. The SEED is very hard: it should be carefully 
collected in the fall of the year, ^vhen ripe: if sown directly, 
part of it might come up the first year ; but the best way 
is, to keep it one year out of ground, precisely in the 
manner directed in the case of the Ash seeds, in para- 
graphs 107 and 108; and they should be sowed, in the time 
and manner directed for the sowing of the Ash seeds in 
paragraph 108, and the following. 

310. The young plants come up with two little round 
leaves, not so big as those of the smallest of the turnips ; 
and great care must be taken to keep them clear of weeds. 
They do not attain the height of more than four or five 
inches the first year, when they ought to be moved into the 
nursery, in the manner directed for the Ash. They ought 
to stand in the nursery two years; for they are but slow 
growers at first. They are to plant as hedges, or as inde- 
pendent ornamental trees. If the latter be intended, they 
should have the ground well trenched for them, and made 
rather good. There ought to be two rows of plants to form 
the hedge, if it be intended to become lofty ; the plants 



The Larch. 



should be two feet apart in each row, and those in one of 
the rows should stand opposite the interval of the other 
row. The whole of them should be cut down to the 
ground the year after being planted. The main shoot of 
each plant ought to be suffered to go upright, and the side 
shoots, instead of being pruned oif, should, on each side, 
from the very ground, if possible, be worked in a horizontal 
direction, along amongst the uprights of the neighbouring 
plants. In a year or two, you begin to clip with the shears 
at the bottom of the hedge 3 and, as the hedge mounts, you 
keep twisting in the side shoots, and clipping the points, 
until you have the hedge to the height you wish, when you 
make the top either like the ridge of a house, or flat, as 
may best suit your taste. The hedge, like that of the 
Hawthorn, should be clipped twice a year ; in the winter, 
and about the middle of July. Having omitted to mention 
this under the word Hawthorn, I mention it here as 
worthy of particular attention. 



In Latin, Larix; in French, Melose. 

311. The botanical characters are: — Male and female flowers, growing 
separately on the same tree. The male flowers are disposed in a scaly kat- 
kin ; they have no petal, but they have a great number of stamina, which 
are connected in a column below, but are separated at their points, and ter- 
minated by erect summits. The female flowers are disposed in a conical 
shape, having no petals; these are placed in pairs under each scale, having 
a small gerraen, supporting an awl-shaped style, crowned by a single stigma. 
The germen afterwards becomes a nut, with a membranous wing inclosed 
in the scales of the cones. 



312. This is a tree about which there is not much to be 
said by me; because, whether as to the manner of collect- 

m2 



The Larch. 



ing^ of getting out of the cone, or of sowing the seed ; 
whether as to the manner of removing the plants into the 
nm'sery, of putting them in plantations, of managing 
them in those plantations, of thinning them out into the 
plantations, or finally as to cutting them down as timber, 
every thing said under the head of " The Fir," is equally 
applicable here ; and, therefore, I have only to request the 
reader to turn back to what has been said under that head. 

313. But there is one use to which Larches are put, and 
to w^hich the Fir can scarcely ever be applied ; namely, 
that of Hop-Poles, of which it makes not bad ones, when 
the tree has attained a height, so as to make it about an 
inch and a half through at twenty feet from the ground. 
This pole is said to last as long as that of the Ash ; but it 
has the fault which I mentioned under the head of Chesnut, 
that of being too big at the butt in proportion to its height. 
I am so decidedly of opinion that it is far more profitable 
to plant Ash for this purpose, and more especially the Lo- 
cust, as we shall see by and by, that I do not recommend 
the planting of Larch for the making of Hop-Poles, If 
planted for that purpose, however, the plants should not 
stand at more than three feet apart, and should be kept 
pruned up on the sides, as directed for the Fir and the 
Chesnut, these being the means of keeping the butt of the 
pole nearer proportioned in size to the point of it. But the 
disadvantage of employing ground in this way, for the pur- 
pose of obtaining poles, must be evident to every one who 
considers that, at three feet apart, an acre will contain only 
4480 poles ; that the Ash or the Locust wlW, if you please, 
contain just the same number at the first crop; and 
that the Larch, when once cut down, never shoots again ; 
while the Ash or the Locust will give you, in all probability, 
from ten to twenty thousand poles out of the stems which 



The Lime. 

you Lave left in tlie ground ; so tbat^ at about three cut- 
tings, either of the two latter will have given you about 
forty thousand poles on the acre, while the Larch will have 
given you only 9680 poles 5 and, to obtain these, you must 
grub the ground, trench a second time, and make a new 
plantation of Larches. The trees are pretty, and they make 
good timber when they are large. They are ornamental, 
but they yield to many other trees even in that respect; 
and, as poles, it can never be profitable to plant them, 
especially when the Birch, the Ash, and the Locust, and 
particularly the first and the last of these, will thrive any- 
where where the Larch will thrive ; and though the Birch 
does not make a good pole, it makes many other things of 
as great and more general utility. 



In Latin, Tilia ; in French, Tillcul. 

314, The botanical characters are : — The tlower has a concave, coloured 
empalement, which is cut into five parts ; it has five oblong blunt petals, 
which are crenated at their points, and many awl-shaped stamina, terminated 
by single summits, with a roundish germen, supporting a slender style the 
length of the stamina, crowned by an obtuse five-cornered stigma. The ger- 
men becomes afterwards a thick globular capsule with five cells, opening at 
the base, with five valves, each containing one roundish seed. 

315. There are several varieties of the Lime, and the 
Common Lime in England is too well known to require 
any description as to its outward api)earanccs. It is well 
known to attain a great height, to be very beautiful in its 
foliage in the former part of the summer; to have a leaf, 
however, that dies early, that becomes rather ugly by Au- 
gust, and that litters the ground all over by the month of 
September. This tree, which is never placed in plantations 



The Lime. 

for timber, and which is not worth a rush as underwood, is 
merely an ornamental thing, having a soft white wood, used 
sometimes in toy-turnery, and for some other purposes of 
no great consequence ; but the tree is greatly ornamental, 
grows fast, and stands erect, especially if raised from the 
seed. 

316. The SEED of this tree is a little kernel of the size 
of a very small pea, contained within a hard and toughish 
shell, which shell is covered with a slender pulp. The 
seed does not always ripen in England, but it sometimes 
does, in very fine and hot summers ^ and it may be gathered 
early in September, in very great abundance, and with the 
greatest possible ease. 

317. Miller, after giving directions for raising this tree 
from layers, says, that " if the tree be intended to grow large, 
to raise from seed is the best way." The matter for surprise 
is, that any one should ever raise a Lime from a layer, see- 
ing that it is always intended to grow large, that it is want- 
ed for its height, and the mass of its foliage, to make a 
stately appearance in avenues, in clumps, or in indej)endent 
trees ; therefore, I shall give particular instructions relative 
to this mode of propagation. 

318. The time of sowing is the same as that of the Ash 
(paragraph 108), only with a covering a little less deep. 
The seed, when collected, should be made perfectly dry in 
the sun, then mixed with very dry sand, and kept in that 
state until about the month of August after it is collected. 
The mixture may then be moistened a little, and kept fre- 
quently turned; and the sowing should take place in No- 
vember, lest the seed should begin to sprout in the heap. 
If you sow in the November after you have collected the 



The Lime. 



seeds, some of them will come iij), but, perhaps, not one out 
of fifty. 1 have several beds of Amp;rican Ltmes which I 
sowed last INIarcli (it is now the 2d of March, 18*28) : not a 
seed came up ; but I have examined the beds, and believe 
all the seeds to be sound. 

319. When the plants come up, they will appear, as they 
are, very tender, and the beds must be scrupulously kept 
clear of weeds. It is a very bushy-rooted plant, takes root 
with the greatest facility, and should be moved into a nur- 
sery at the fall of the year, in the same manner as directed for 
the Ash, in paragraphs 120, 121, and 122. In this nursery 
the plants may stand a year or two, having been assorted, 
as mentioned in the case of the Ash ; and, as Miller justly 
observes, if you mean to have a fine, a straight-trunked, a 
lofty, and a long-lived tree, you must not only raise from 
the seed, but also plant the tree out where it is finally to 
stand while it is yoiuig, certainly not more than three or 
four years old. If you plant in parks, or in any place where 
cattle go, you must fence round the trees efiectually ; for, 
if once cropped, the trees will never be beautiful ; and if 
only the side shoots be cropped, the cropping will disfi- 
gure the tree, and prevent it from thriving. 

320. If you wish your tree to branch out from the bottom, 
as people generally do, when the trees are planted three or 
four in a clump, or as independent trees, you must, of 
course, refrain from cutting off" the principal side shoots; 
but if you wish it to have a clear stem to any considerable 
length, you must prune in the manner directed for the 
Beech. When Limes are cut down, they send out great 
numbers of young shoots from the sides of the old stem ; 
but these never arrive at anything more than the forming 
of a sort of bush j and the stem, with all its branching 



The Lime. 



roots to their utmost extent^ ought to be giiibbed up and 
taken out of the ground, making room for something else to 
grow. 

321. There are two sorts of American Lime : the White 
Lime {Tilia Alba) and the Downy Lime {Tilia Pubescens), 
These Llaies^ according to IMichaux^ do not rise to a 
height, in general, equal to ours 3 but, as ornamental trees, 
they very far surpass ours. Li America, they are both 
called by the name of Bass Wood, from the circumstance of 
the inner bark being so excellent for the yielding that stuff 
of which our garden mats are made. The wood of the 
American Limes appears to be that of ours ; but the trees 
have this great advantage over ours, that the leaf is larger 
in the White Lime, is of a more ornamental shape, and 
preserves its bright green until the frosts come. The other 
tree, the Downy Lime, is still more ornamental, the leaves 
being of a very bright and beautiful green on the upper 
side, and pretty nearly white on the under side. The man- 
ner of propagating and of managing these trees, is, of 
course, the same as directed for the English Lime; the 
same objections to the raising from layers apply here also. 
It is surprising that people should not raise from the seed, 
seeing that it is so much cheaper, as well as better in every 
respect. I can never too often beseech the reader to remem- 
ber, that a layer is a BRANCH of a tree; and that it is 
against nature to expect a tall and handsome tree, with a 
regular trunk, diminishing from the base upwards, to come 
from a branch. Accordingly, we see them in the nurseries 
requiring everlasting attention, to prevent their growing 
into tbrks and becoming bushy-headed. xAfter all, they are 
but poor scrubby thing;?, full of knots and burrs from the 
frequent cutting about, and the wonder is that they ever 
make any figure at all. 



In Latin, Eohinia Pseudo Acacia; in French, Acacie, 

322. The Botanical characters are : — The erapalement of the flower is 
small, of one leaf, and divided into four parts; the three upper !;egments 
being narrow, but the upper one is broad. The flower is of the pea-bloom 
kind. The standard is large, roundish, obtuse, and spreads open. The two 
wings are oval, and have short appendixes, which are obtuse. The keel is 
roundish, compressed, obtuse, and is extended the length of the wings. Ja 
the centre are situated ten stamina, nine of them being joined together, and 
the other standing single, terminated by roundish summits. It has an oblong 
cylindrical germen, supporting a slender style, crowned by a hairy stigma ; 
these are inclosed by the keel. The germen becomes afterwards au oblong 
compressed pod, inclosing kidney-shaped seeds. 

323. This is^ in my opinion, the tree of trees; it was, at 
any rate, my desire to see this tree introduced into general 
cultivation in England, that induced me to import the seed 
and to sell the plants here j and that led, also, to the writing 
and the publishing cf this work. I shall, therefore, leave in 
this article nothing unsaid that I know upon the subject ; 
and I believe I know as much on this subject, and perhaps 
more, than any man in the world, and particularly as to the 
propagation of the tree, which, when I have given the fullest 
possible account of the valuable properties ^f the tree, I 
shall make as easy to the reader as is the rearing of cab- 
bages or turnips ; and that, too, at an expense so moderate, 
as to make it next to impossible for any gentleman, who 
has the seed, to refrain from cultivating this tree upon as 
large a scale as his possessions will permit. 



The Locust. 



324. There are several varieties of the Acacia, flistiii- 
guished by the difference in the size of their leaves, by that 
in the colour of the blossoms, by that of the size and shape 
of the sccd-pod, and by the size and shape of the seeds 
themselves. Some of these varieties, according to Michaux, 
yield but very indifferent timber, though they differ but 
very little in the size and shape of the leaf, and in the size 
and look of the tree itself. One of these is called the Yellow 
Wood, in America; another is called the Sweet Locust; 
another is called the Water Locust, I have seen several 
trees, in England, of a Locust differing in appearance 
and in blossom but very little from the Robinia; but the 
wood of which, as Michaux says, is good for very little; 
so that the greatest care must be taken, as to the variety 
of sort which is sowed. 

325. This tree was first introduced into Europe by J. 
Robin, a French botanist, who received it from Canada, and 
cultivated it in France in the reign of Henry the Fourth. 
— *^To commemorate the introduction of so valuable a 
" tree," says Michaux, " and to express the acknowledg- 
" ments due to the person who had conferred this benefit 
" upon the old continent, Linnaeus gave the genus to which 
" it belongs, the name of Robinia." This, therefore, is that 
particular sort of Locust, which word Locust is used by 
Michaux because it is the name given to the tree by the 
inhabitants of America, who had a right to give it what 
name they pleased ; and which name I use, not only for that 
reason, but to prevent any person, sending to America 
either for timber or for seed, from being disappointed, there 
being hardly one man in twenty thousand who knows the 
tree by any other name. It is curious that Michaux, in 
speaking of the fine trees which he had seen in America of 
this sort, should mention those which he saw near Harris- 



The Locust. 



BOURGH, in Pennsylvania, it being from that spot that I have 
always received my seed; and that part of Pennsylvania being 
the most famous in the whole continent for this sort of 
timber. Harrisbourgh is situated on one of the banks of 
the Sus(|uehannah River, and there, by the bye, is a suspen- 
sion bridge, built principally of Locust wood, stretching 
across a river more than a mile wide, and under which, ves- 
sels of no very contemptible size pass without lo\vering 
their masts. 

326. The outward appearance of this tree, its beautiful 
leaves and flowers, are pretty well known in most parts of 
England; but it remained for me to make known the pro- 
perties of the wood. These properties, too, are in part 
mentioned by Miller ; and its surprising powers, when 
constituting parts of ships, are mentioned at full length in 
Hunter's edition of Evelyn's Sylva. Notwithstanding 
this, we never heard of a man in England that ever planted 
this tree, until I took the matter in hand, except as a thing 
of mere ornament, in which respect it certainly surpasses 
any other in the world, but as such I should not have 
deemed it worthy of notice. I have, at different times, 
written and published upon this subject, through the chan- 
nel of the Register, in "which I began by producing certi- 
ficates relative to the durability of the wood. 1 shall, by 
and by, publish those certificates, which I collected, or, at 
least, 1 paved the way for collecting, while I was in Long 
Island, from the month of May, 1817, to the month of 
October, 1819; a space of time that I was in voluntary 
banishment, for the purpose of avoiding those dungeons 
into which such numbers of the public-spirited and vir- 
tuous reformers were put, deprived of the use of pen, ink, 
and paper, and from which they were finally released (those 
of them who survived their suflerings) without any charge 



The Locust. 



having been preferred against them from the first to the 
last. Nevertheless^ I did not forget my country, and the 
duty I still owed to her. I was convinced that nothing in 
the timber way could be so great a benefit as the general 
cultivation of this tree. Thus thinking, I brought a parcel 
of this seed home with me in 1819, but I had no means of 
sowing it until the year 1823. T then began sowing it, but 
upon a very small scale. I sold the plants; and, since that 
time, I have sold altogether more than a million of them. 

327. In other places I have said quite enough upon the 
properties of the wood, upon the uses for which it serves, 
upon the quickness of the growth of the tree, and also upon 
the manner of planting it. All that I have said before 
must, however, be repeated here ; for, besides that new 
readers are every day rising up, this is the book, this is the 
part of my labours, where every one who cares anything 
about them will look for what 1 have to say relative to this 
tree ; for the manner of collecting and preserving the seeds 
of which, and also of the manner of sowing which seed, I 
have no where, as yet, given a full and detailed account ; 
and yet it is very material to give that account. I shall, 
therefore, first repeat what I have said before, on the pro- 
perties of the wood; then on the quickness of the growth of 
the tree ; and then I shall lay down the plainest possible 
directions for the sowing of the seed, and for the managing 
of the young plants. 

328. The wood is very hard, and close and heavy ; it is 
yellow, almost as box; as hard as box, but the grain not so 
fine. The durahU'iiy of this wood is such, that no man in 
America will pretend to say that he ever saw a hit of it in a 
decayed state. This seems hyperbolical ; but every Ameri- 
can of experience in country affairs will, if appealed to, 



The Locust, 



confirm what I say. It is absolutely indestructible by the 
powers of earth, air, and water. Its strength far surpasses 
that of the very best of our Spine Oak. It is to this timber 
that the American ships owe a great part of their superiority 
to ours. The stantions round the deck are made of Locust ; 
and, while much smaller than the stantions of Oak, will 
resist a sea three times as heavy as the Oak will. The tiller 
of the ship is made of Locust, because it demands great 
strength and is required not to be bulky. For the same 
reason, the martingales of ships are made of Locust. The 
Locust is rather a rare timber in America ; but sometimes 
the futtocks or rihs of ships, are made of Locust; and if a 
ship had all its ribs, and beams, and knees of Locust, it 
would be worth two common ships. Further, as to ship- 
building, that important article, the TRUNNELS, w^hen 
they consist of Locust, make the ship last, probably, twice 
as long as if the trunnels consisted of Oak. Our Admiralty 
know this very well, or at least they ought to know it. 
These trunnels are the pins, of which so many are used to 
hold the side-planks on to the timbers of the ship. 
Trunnels is said to be a corruption from tree-nails ; but I 
do not believe it. However, we know what these things 
are : we know that they are an article of the very first im- 
portance in ship-building j we know that the hardest of our 
Spine Oak is picked out for the purpose and, with all that, 
we know that the trunnel is the thing that rots first : for the 
water, or, at least, the damp, will get in round the trunnel, 
and between it and the plank ; and if water or damp hang 
about Oak, the Oak will rot. All the American public ships 
are built with Locust trunnels, and so are all the merchant- 
ships of the first character. 

329. Some of our own public ships have, I fancy. Locust 
trunnels brought from America; and I have been informed, 



The Locust. 



that when Cropper, Benson, and Co., of Liverpool, 
built their East Indiamen, they imported the Locust 
trunnels and some other of the timbers from New York. 
We have a monstrous deal to do, in many respects, 
to make our navy (gun for gun) a match for that of the 
United States; but if we had accomplished every other 
point, there would still remain want of timber, unless we 
supplied ourselves with the Locust, at the least. The 
Hickory we should want for handspikes, for mast-hoops, 
and other hoops to go round the yards and stays. Various 
other things would be wanted to make our ships as light 
and as roomy as those of the Americans, and with the same 
degree of strength ; but, without the Locust, it is impossible 
to match them. 

330. But, important as these matters are, these are, by 
no means, to be compared to the various uses about build- 
ings and fences. I have said that this wood is indestructi- 
ble by the elements, except that of fire. How many thou- 
sands of houses are rendered useless in England, every year, 
by that thing which they call the dry rot, proceeding solely 
from those villanous soft woods, which impatient people 
take such delight in planting, and which carpenters of 
delicate constitution take such delight in sawing and plan- 
ing, English Spine Oak is stronger than Deal; and if you 
keep it dry, it will not rot; but let it lie in the wet, or 
damp, and let the air get at it at the same time, and no 
villanous Deal board will turn to earth more quickly. Win- 
dow sills of the best of Oak will rot, if something be not 
done to keep away the wet from getting under them : and 
in this very way the dry rot has got into many a house. 
Oak door sills are rotten in a very short time. The ends 
of beams and of joists, if they rest upon brick or stone, 
where the moisture is constantly about them, rot in a few 



The Locust. 



years. The points of rafters, and the pins ^vhich hokl 
rafters together, are always rotting. If these things were 
made of Locust, your house would be safe for ages. Every 
where, when you want something to lie sopping in the wet, 
and at the same time to be exposed to the air, you should 
have Locust. Endless are the uses to which it might be 
put. A bottle-rack, for instance, that you want to stand out 
of doors and hidden in some corner, a grindstone-stand, a 
horse-block ; but, particularly, a cart-house, or anything 
that requires pillars, the bottoms of which are to go into tJie 
ground. Go into any farm-yard in England ; I do not care 
what farm-yard it is : and you shall find, in the cart-house, 
one of these things : first, the posts that support the build- 
ings rotting off very fast, just where they meet the ground^ 
second, those posts rotted off and cut off, and some stones 
put under them, to the manifest risk of the cart-house; 
third, the cart-house actually tumbling down in consequence 
of the rotting off of the posts. This is notorious; every 
farmer, every landlord in the kingdom, knows it. Now, I 
* will insert a note from my memorandum-book, under date 
of October 16, 1819. " At Judge Lawrence's, at Bayside, 
I saw a new cider-house, built against a hill, the upper 
" story of it supported in front by some Locust posts. These 
*^ posts, the Judge told me, had stood for forty years, or 
" rather better, as the posts of a cart-shed," They were as 
sound as they had been the first year they were cut down. 
In our stables in England, you see stones put at the bottom 
of the stall-posts. What a plague it is ! Little Locust trees, 
only about seven years old, would, for these purposes, make 
posts that would last for ever. Every one knows how the 
sleeper (as I think they call it) rots; that is to say, the piece 
of wood that goes along at the bottom of each side of the 
stall. We know, also, how the manger-posts rot off at 



The Locust. 

the ground. Use Locust timber, and it will wear out the 
stone walls of the building-. 

SSL I should fatigue the reader were I to enumerate 
only a tenth part of the uses of this timber 3 but, in short, if 
the timber be imperishable, what need of anything more in 
its praise ? Will, however, English people believe in this 
imperishability ? I would not believe in such a thing, if no 
proof were produced ; and, therefore, I will now proceed to 
the proof of the truth of what I have stated. The test of 
imperishability is the situation of a post or sill, being exposed 
to air and water; or, rather, it being so situated as to lie 
sopping in the wet. J was led, by circumstances to be stated, 
by and by, to entertain, while I was last in America, an 
anxious desire to introduce this valuable tree into England. 
After I had resolv^ed to return in 1819, 1 set myself to work 
to get some seed together, which I found to be no easy matter; 
for the Locust tree is by no means abundant in any part of 
America where I have lived; but, how to go to work to 
persuade English people that a little tree, chopped down, 
and put into the ground as a gate post or pale post, would 
stand there for a hundred years without rotting at all ! 
How to persuade English people to believe this; and to 
believe, of course, that there was a timber about a hundred 
times as good as their heart of Oak ! You shall hear how 
I went to work to endeavour to effect this. 

332. In the latter end of August, in the year just spoken 
of, I was at Plandome, the farm and residence of Mr. 
JuDGK MiTCHKLL, in Loug Island. He was building a 
new house on tlie spot where had stood the house of his 
grandfather. There had been a little sort of lawn before 
the dooi', enclosed by a pale fence. The fence had all 



The Locust. 



been pulled up, and there it lay, posts and rails and pale?. 
I asked the Judge how long the posts had been in the 
ground. He said eight- and-twenty years. Each post had 
been a little tree, just chopped down, sawed off to the 
proper length, and squared, and each containing about 
half afoot of timber. They were all as sound as they had 
been the first day that they were cut down ; and even the 
little sharp edges left by the axe-chops, at the part where 
the square part met with the un-squared part : even the 
little axe-chops were sound. The Americans use what 
they call stakes, to hold on the top-rail of what they call a 
worm- fence. These are generally made of little limbs of 
trees, about eight feet long, and about the bigness of a 
hop-pole. I saw many of these at Judge Mitchell's on 
that day, which he assured me had been standing as stakes 
for upwards of thirty years. I hinted to the men of Kent 
that I would teach them how to make everlasting hop- 
poles ; and this is a duty that I particularly owe to my 
native town of Farnham, so famous for hops. 

333. On the 25th of October of the same year, 1819, 1 x^sls 
in company with Doctor Peter Townsend, at Mr. Judge 
Lawrence's, at Bayside, in the township of Flushing, 
Long Island. I was talking to them about this Locust- 
tree project; and here I cannot refrain from making an 
observation which I have more than once made in my 
Year's Residence ; namely, that, say what they will of the 
selfishness of Jonathan, I say that he is the most truly 
liberal of all mankind. At home, he never grudges his 
neighbour his good fortune; he is always made happy by 
his neighbour's success and prosperity : and, as to foreign 
nations, he is always anxious that they should possess all the 
products, all the inventions, all the improvements that he 
himself enjoys. In conformity with this most amiable dis- 



The Locust. 



j)Osition, my excellent friends at Bayskle entered into my 
views, abont introducing the Locust into England. The 
Judge showed me a post, which he said must be nearly a 
Imndred years old as a post. This post had been cut down, 
when a little tree, and it had served in the capacity of what 
they call a hog-gallows post. I examined it very minutely, 
and I found it perfectly sound, even to the very tips of it. 
It was a post with a fork at the top of it. The points of 
the fork had been chopped off in a careless manner ; and 
there were these points perfectly sound. But the main 
(juestion was, how ^vas the post luhere it met the ground f 
It was just as sound there as it was in any other part. It 
had stood in a gutter, observe, for all these number of years. 
The water thrown to wash out the hogs had run down the 
gutter, and had soaked down about the post. The nume- 
rous sweepings and shovelings of the gutter, to take away 
the blood and the mud, had worn away the post a little, as 
they would have worn aw^ay iron ; but still it w^as as sound 
as on the day when it w^s felled. 

334. Judge Mitchell was so kind as to give me a me- 
morandum, signed by himself, relative to this post; and 
Judge Lawrence, not being so old as his brother Henry, 
we sent for the latter, and he signed a memorandum, rela- 
tive to the hog-gallow^s post. I dare say that every reader, 
who delights in rural concerns, and who duly considers the 
vast importance of this matter, wdll lament that he, also, 
could not see these posts. If he happen to be in London, 
HE MAY SEE THEIM NOW ; for they are to be seen by 
any body at the Office of the Register in Fleet- street. The 
Manchester Magistrates brought out horse and foot to pre- 
vent me from passing through their town. The Bolton 
Magistrates put John Hayes in prison, for ten weeks, for 
announcing that I had arrived at Liverpool in good health. 



The Locust. 



But my Locust posts came safely to London, and I came 
soon after them, with the following memorandums in my 
pocket. 

Plandoyne, 23 August, 1819. 

335. I HAVE this day given to William Cobbett a Locust post six feet long-, 
and squaring three inches by three and a half, which is perfectly sound in all 
its parts, and which has stood in the ground, as part of a fence, in front of 
my house, from the year 1791 until about five weeks ago, when the fence 
was taken up. 

Singleton Mitchell. 

Bayside, Flushing, 25 Oct. 1819. 

336. My brother, Effingham Lawrence, has this day taken up out of the 
ground, and given to William Cobbett, a hog-gallows post ; that is, a post 
having a fork at the top, for the purpose of lodging a pole on, and on which 
pole hogs are, when killed, hanged up by the heels. This post is of Locust 
Wood ; it was a single tree, and the whole of the lower part of that tree ; it 
is, from extreme point to extreme point, eight feet eight inches long ; from 
the tip of one fork to that of the other, from outside to outside, it is seventeen 
and a half inches ; there is a knot, the middle of v/hich is fourteen and a half 
inches from the end of the butt ; there is another knot eleven inches from the 
middle of the fork; the circumference of the post, at the mid-distance from 
the ends, is eighteen inches. I have known this post standing as a hog-gal- 
lows post during forty-four years. When I first knew it, it was a very old 
post. 1 remember hearing my father say, that it was a wonderfully old post 
then. I should suppose it to have been a post upwards of fourscore years. 

Henry Lawrence, 

337. I have before mentioned, that Doctor Townsend 
was with us at Bayside. The Doctor was acquainted with 
a Mr. Smith, of Smith's Town in Long Island, and he had 
heard that there was a Locust post at Smith's Town, which 
could be proved, by unquestionable testimony, to have 
stood, without injury, for upwards of a hundred years. I 
begged of the Doctor to get me proof of this, and to send it 
to me to England. This he did, very punctually, as will 
appear from the following documents. 

n2 



The Locust. 



To Doctor Peter Townsend. 

338. Smith's Town, Long Island, 25 Feb. 1820. 

Dear Sir, — Yesteiday morning 1 received the letter which you raentioued 
having written me of the 22d, on the subject of the posts, to which 1 had cer- 
tified, on the evening of that day, at the Judge's. I observe by an extract of 
Mr. Cobbett's letter, quoted by you, that he is desirous of further information, 
and mentions something of obtaining the post. This memento of antiquity, 
though not intrinsically worth six cents, I would hardly part with for its 
weight in silver ; but such information as I can give you is cheerfully at his 
service. There are many Locust posts in my post-and-rail cross-fences, put 
in by a former proprietor of the farm, who has been dead about twenty- six 
years; probably some of them have been standing fifty years or upwards, 
most of which are at this day in a perfectly sound state above and below the 
surface of the ground. Since residing on this/a/vn (about three years since), 
I have taken down an old barn which had been repaired by putting in new 
sills and other parts of its foundation, under, as nearly as I can ascertain, 
about forty-one or two years ago. One of these sills was of Locust, about 
eight inches square, which, by the inattention of the proprietor, had been 
buried many years under the dirt and filth which invariably collect about such 
buildings j the foundation timbers had all disappeared, and some of the posts 
rotted and entirely decayed tv.o or three feet above the base, when 1 took 
possession here eleven years ago. In removing the dirt to manure my gar- 
den, about two feet below the surface, I came to the Locust sill. While the 
other timbers had all mouldered down, and some of them so far incorporated 
with the dirt as scarcely to be distinguished or known from it, the Locust 
was in so perfect and uninjured a state that I had a pair of axletrees made 
from off it for a wagon, which are now doing good service, I recollect my 
father's cutting a quantity of large Locust timber for market, some of the 
limbs of which were converted into posts to put up a board fence near the 
house. This fence I assisted in making : one side was flatted to receive the 
board, and the posts set into the ground, with the natural bark on, for about 
twenty-eight inches. Fourteen years afterwards, and after my father's de- 
cease, in making a new disposition of the ground, 1 was present when my 
brother Ebenezer took up these posts. There was very little visible decay 
even of the bark, and the wood, when stripping the bark off, had the appear- 
ance of being just felled. Many instances might be given of the durability 
and usefulness of this very valuable timber. So sensible are we, in this quar- 
ter, of its great worth, that every farmer of common prudence is taking the 
utmost pains to cultivate it, when and wherever he can. Should you make 
any further communications to Mr. Cobbett, I beg you will tender to him my 
best wishes for the health and happiness of himself and his family. With 
sentiments of much friendship and esteem, I am. 

Your obetUent and most humble Servant, 

Richard Smith. 



The Locust. 



339. Certificate, 

There is a Locust post standing on the road side, about sixty yards from 
Smith's Town River, and about one mile from Lon^ Island Sound, into which 
that river empties, in the Township of Smith's Town, Suffolk County, Long 
Island, and opposite to my door. This post is a quarter section of a Locust 
trunk which must originally have been about eight inches in diameter. I 
have been informed by my uncle, Joshua Smith, father of the present Judge 
Smith, that this post was placed there by his father, Daniel Smith, grandson 
of the patentee of Smith's Town, in the year 1709. The soil in which the post 
stands is a black loam, and about sixteen feet above the surface of the river. 
It is about two feet in the ground. On examining it about a year since, below 
the surface of the ground, it was found perfectly and thoroughly sound in 
every respect, Above the ground there is no appearance of decay or rot, and 
no disfiguration whatever, except what has been caused by friction, or by its 
long exposure to the weather. And all the effect of these causes has been 
merely to roughen a little its surface. This post is alongside of a stone horse- 
block, and was intended and is now used as a support to ascend the block. 
Within a half-yard of this post there is also a flat red Cedar post, of about four 
inches thickness, and which belonged to a trunk which must have been about 
twelve inches in diameter. This post, which was set at the same time with 
the Locust post, is not quite so sound below the surface as that. Above 
ground it is also more decayed, and shows indications of having yielded more 
to the influence of the weather than the Locust post in the same part." The 
top, particularly, is crumbling. 

Richard Smith. 



340. To Mr. Cobbett. 

Sir, — At the request of my friend, Doctor Peter S. Townsend, I have given 
the above Certificate with great pleasure, and hope it may answer the pur- 
poses you have in view from it, as I stand pledged to vouch for its accuracy. 
With much respect, 

I am. Sir, 

Your most obedient and most humble Servant 
Richard Smith. 



The LfOcUsT. 



341. The fact, theii^ of the durability of this v/ood, is here 
put beyond dispute. If it lasts sound as a post out of doors 
for more than a hundred years, it may be fairly said to last 
for ever. If it will make axletrees for a wagon, after hav- 
ing lain as a barn sill in the wet and dirt for forty years, it 
may be fairly said that it will yield to nothing but fire. 
This tree has no sap. It is all of the same quality, and 
Judge Lawrence showed me some with the bark on per- 
fectly sound, after having stood more than twenty years. It 
is all spine. It is just as hard when as big round as your 
wrist, as when it is as big round as your body. Here are 
hop-poles, then ! Here is stuff to make hurdle gates for 
sheep-folding ! Here is stulF for clothes-posts and all sorts 
of uses. A Locust hop-pole, when once pointed, would 
serve, and that, too, without any more pointing, for half a 
centuri/. At Fleet-street there is one of the stakes which I 
mentioned above, and which I brought from the farm of 
Judge Mitchell. Whoever looks at this stake will see 
that it was a mere branch, and a crooked and poor branch, 
too, cut off from a tree ; yet it lasted as a stake for thirty 
years, and is now as hard and as solid as it was on the day 
that it was cut off the tree. 

342. Will any one suppose, that the names that I have 
made use of here, are not real names ? Amongst the 
wretched calumniators of the day, there may be some to 
pretend to believe this; but no one will believe it. I wish, 
however, to leave no doubt with regard to a matter, which, 
as the reader will clearly see, I have long had my heart set 
upon. I will therefore state, that Mr. Singleton Mitchell 
is a brother of the really celebrated Doctor Mitchell, of 
New York, who has written so ably on natural history, who 
is famed for his learning, who is a member of most of the 
learned Societies of Europe, and who is not less renowned 



The Locust. 



for his learning than he is for his goodness. The Law- 
rences are, Effingham, the uncle, and Henry, the father, 
of Messrs. Lawrence, merchants at New York, who trade 
with London and Liverpool. Doctor Townsend is the 
brother of Mrs. Effingham Lawrence. He was in 
London last June 1822, and must, doubtless, be known 
to many of the faculty in London. In short, these are all 
persons of the first respectability in every sense of that 
word. 

343. Before I dismiss this part of the subject, namely, 
the great durability of the wood, it is bare justice to myself 
to insert two extracts from other English works : the first 
is part of a Note, by Hunter, in his edition of Evelyn's 
Svlva; the second is an extract from the Gentleman's 
Magazine of the year 179L I beg the reader's attention 
to these extracts. 

344. Note from Hunter's Edition of Evelyn's Sylva. 

My excellent friend, Joseph Harrison, Esq., of Bawtry, has favoured me 
with the following ohservations, in a letter dated July 25, 1782 : — " The first 

experiment that 1 know of, respecting the application of the timber of the 
" Locust-tree to any purposes in ship-building, was in Virginia, where 1 
" resided some time about the year 1733; aud there, happening to be ac- 

quainted with an ingenious shipwright, that had been sent over by some 
** merchants of Livei-pool to build two large ships, I had frequent conversa- 

tions with him, respecting the qualities of the several principal timber trees 
" in that country. Being a person of observation, he had made many useful 
" remarks on that subject; which the nature of his employment afforded 
*' many opportunities of doing with advantage. He reckoned the Oaks, Elms, 
" Ashes, and many other timber-trees common to both countries, much in- 
" ferior to the same sorts in England ; but frequently spoke of the Locust- 
" tree, as of extraordinai7 qualities both for strength and duration ; and used 
" often to say, if a sufficient quantity could be had, it would be the best tim- 
" her he had ever met with for the building of ships. After he had completed 
" his engagements with his employers at Liverpool, he set a small vessel on 
the stocks for himself; but unluckily, not having a sufficient quantity of 



The Locust. 

iron for that purpose, and none being to be had at that time in the country, 
*' he was obliged to put a stop to the work, till he bethought himself of the 
following succedaneum : — He had formerly (as hinted above) observed the 
" extraordinary strength and firmness of the Locust-tree, and on this occa- 
** sion took it into his head that tree-nails of that timber might be substi- 
** luted for iron bolts, in many places where least liable to wrench or twist, 
** as in fastening the floor-timbers to the keel, and the knees to the end of the 
" beams, which two articles take up a large proportion of the iron used in a 
ship ; purposing, when he arrived in England, to bore out the Locust tree- 
" nails, and drive iron bolts in their stead. When he first informed me of 
this scheme, I must own I thought the experiment very hazardous. How- 
** ever, as necessity has no law, he put it in practice. The ship was built in 
** that manner, loaded, and sailed for Liverpool, where she arrived safe; and, 
** though they met with some blowing weather on the passage, she never 
*' made so much water but that one pump could easily keep her free. She 
** returned back to Virginia the next year, when I had an opportunity of being 
informed, by the builder himself (who was then Captain of her), of what 
** had been the result of his project. He said, that duriug the passage, espe- 
cially in blowing weather, he was very attentive in examining the water- 
** ways, as, at that place, weak ships are most liable to work and strain ; but 
" that he could not perceive anything more than is usual in other vessels. 
When unloaded, she was hauled ashore upon the bank, in order to be 
searched both outside and inside ; when, on the strictest examination, it 
was found the Locust tree-nails, that had been substituted instead of iron 
*^ bolts, seemed (to all appearance) to have effectually answered the purpose 
intended ; however, it was thought prudent to take several of them out, and 
put in iron bolts in their room : and this operation afforded another proof 
of their extraordinary strength and firmness ; as they endured to be hacked 
out with a set-bolt, just as well as though they had been iron : whereas 
** Oak tree-nails are usually bored out with an augur. The next voyage the 
** ship made was to the West Indies, where the Captain died, and with him 
** ended (for the present) any further prosecution of this matter : for, though 
** the success of the above experiment was known to many, yet (as is fre- 
quently the case with new discoveries) none, that I ever heard of, made 
any use of Locust tree-nails in ship-building till many years after ; though 
on the goodness of that article greatly depends the strength and durableness 
of a ship. I frequently recommended it, when opportunities offered, but 
** all to no purpose, till about twenty years ago, when 1 was settled in trade 
at Rhode Island, I persuaded some ship-builders to try the experiment; but 
** notwithstanding all my endeavours, the use of Locust tree-nails still conti- 
** nued to be little practised or known, till it happened to be adopted by a 
** builder of some eminence at New York, and of late years has been intro- 
** duced into general use there, and in some parts of New England; but, as 



The Locust. 



** yet, the use of the Locust-tree in ship-building is confined to the article of 
" tree-nails, on account of its scarcity ; for, was it near as plentiful as Oak, it 

would be applied to more purposes, such as knees, floor-timbers, foot-hooks, 
** &c., being much superior to it, both as to strength and duration ; and, 
** from its spreading into branches, atFords full as large a proportion of 

crooks, or compass -timber, as the Oak." 



345. Extract from the Gentleman's Magazine. 

The following Article appears in the Gentleman'' s Magazine far Aug, 1791," 
Fol, 61. Part 2. page 699. It is signed Ehen. Jessup. He is descr ibed by 
a Correspondent as an American gentleman^ and an undone Loyalist^ hav- 
ing lost a large fortune in the American war, 

** It is proposed that an Act of Parliament be obtained, apportioning about 
10,000 acres, or such a quantity of the lands in the New Forest and the 
" Forest of Dean, as may be judged sufficient for the purposes of Government, 
** to be set apart for growing Locust-trees , Live Oak, and White Oak, for the 
use of the Royal Navy of this country. The Locust is a wood of a remarkably 
quick growth; so much so, that twenty-five or thirty years will produce a 
large tree, fit for the uses commonly made of it. Its strength is equal to 
*' that of the Oak, audit is of so durable a nature, that a stake driven into the 
** ground has been known to stand exposed to the weather for the space of 
•* eighty or one hundred years, before it began to decay. This wood is found 
" by the American shipwrights to be singularly useful in making the upper 
works of large ships, and such particular parts of vessels as are likely to 
*' decay soon. The Live Oak and White Oak are made use of for the same 
** purposes as the Locust-tree ; and although they are of a less durable nature 
than the Locust, they are still more durable than the common Oak of this 
country. The Locust is used for making of tree-nails or pins for ships; 
** and twelve or fifteen years will produce a tree large enough for that parti- 
** cular purpose. The Locust-tree grows well in this countiy; and my Lord 
** Amherst, to whom I had the honour of suggesting my plans upon this 
subject, informed me that he has Locust-trees now growing in his gardens. 
It is also beyond a doubt, that the Live Oak will grow well in this country. 
The Locust-tree grows best in poor land, a dry, sandy, or gravelly soil, 
** and such as will produce scarcely anything else — of such quality (as 
" well as of good land) there is a sufficient quantity already surveyed in 
" the New Forest." 



The Locust. 



346. But, now comes the great question : Will these trees 
grow in England ? Will they arrive at a good size in Eng- 
land ? And will they arrive at that size in a reasonable 
space of time ? As to the two first. Yes ; simply YES : and, 
as to the last, they will arrive at a good size even sooner than 
a worthless and villanous Scotch Fir, 

347. However, this part of the subject must not be slurred 
over. 1 must do it justice. I have anew set of proofs, and 
those most interesting indeed, connected with this part of the 
subject. In my next Number, I will give an account of actual 
experiments as to the growth of these trees in England ; 
and when I have done that, I will send to Fleet-street spe- < 
cimens of this kind of timber grown in England, I will 
show, that the country would have been worth a hundred 
millions of pounds sterling more than it now is, if this sort 

of tree had, during the last forty years, been cultivated in- 
stead of the villanous race of Firs. I have facts to state 
upon this subject; facts wholly undeniable, that must inte- 
rest every man that has got any feeling about him, be he in 
what situation of life he may. 

348. I have, this morning, measured and weighed the 
post of Mr. Mitchell and that of Mr. Lawrence. The 
former, which the reader will observe, is, for the greater 
part, squared, contains nearly about what is called half a 
foot of timber ; and it weighs twenty-eight pounds and a half 
avoirdupois. The post of Mr. Lawrence, which is round, 
contains, as nearly as possible, what is called a foot of tim- 
ber ; and it weighs sixty-nine pounds and three quarters. 
Here, then, is a foot of timber, standing in the capacity of 
a post out of doors, and in a gutter ; standing thus for up- 
wards of fourscore years, and weighing sixty-nine pounds 
and three quarters at the end of that time. Mind, too, that 



The Locust. 



it is not a piece of stuff that was cut out of the heart of a 
tree; but the whole of a little tree that was put into the 
ground, bark and all ; and that was, in all probability, not 
above seven or eight years old, 

349. The quickness of growth is a great consideration ; 
because every man will say, that, if this tree will grow in 
England, and will grow faster than any other tree, to intro- 
duce it must be a benefit greater than can be easily described. 
1 am going to state the actual measurement of my own plant- 
ing, at three different times ; that is to say, in 1807, in 1809, 
and 1813. But, I must go back a little, in order to give a 
full history of these plantations ; a history which, I am sure, 
every man of any feeling will read with a degree of interest 
that he has rarely experienced. 

350. The scene of the plantings is a piece of ground of 
about three acres, perhaps, close by the village of Botley, 
in Hampshire, where I lived from 1805, till driven away to 
America by Sidmouth and Company's Power of Imprisonment 
Bill, in I8I7. On this piece of ground stood, and stands, 
a dwelling-house, about fifty feet long, forty wide, three 
clear stories high, with a high roof and high chimneys. 
When I entered on the place, in 1805, there were some 
Lombardy Poplars, and some few other things of the tree 
and shrub kind. I grubbed all up. So that there stood this 
great high house, upon a piece of bare ground. The high 
road passes within about fifty yards of one end of the house. 
There it stood in 1805, upon the bare and naked ground. 
Now, at the end of eighteen years, the house is completely 
buried in a icood, grown up out of trees not one of which, 
when planted, was more than four feet high, and the far 
greater part of them were not two feet high ; and, what is 
more, almost the whole of the deciduous trees, raised from 
the seed by me, in and after the year 1806. 



The Locust. 



351. I, like all other planters, was in haste. The naked- 
ness of my house called for shelter. I hought large trees, 
carried them to Botley at great expense, planted them; 
hut, by degrees, I pulled them all up, and flung them away, 
except a row of them, placed against a dead wall, merely 
as a screen. The plantation is, all taken together, the most 
beautiful that I ever saw. It consists, in part, of my LO- 
CUST TREES, planted in the three years before mention- 
ed ; and of these I am now going to give an account. This 
account will be read hundreds of years hence. The time 
will come (and it will not be very distant) when the Locust- 
tree will be more common in England than the Oak ; when a 
man would be thought mad, if he used anything but Locust 
in the making of sills, posts, gates, joists, feet for rick-stands, 
stocks and axletrees for ivheels, hop-poles, pales, or for any- 
thing where there is liability to rot. This time will not be 
distant, seeing that the Locust grows so fast. The next 
race of children but one; that is to say, those w^ho will be 
born sixty years hence, will think that Locust-trees have 
always been the most numerous trees in England ; and some 
curious writer of a century or two hence, will tell his read- 
ers that, wonderfid as it may seem, " the Locust was hardly 
" known in England until about the year 1823, when the 

nation was introduced to a knowledge of it by William 
" CoBBETT." What he will say of me besides, I do not 
know; but I know that he will say this of me. I enter 
upon this account, therefore, knowing that I am writing 
for centuries and centuries to come. 

352. In 1806, I imported several kinds of forest-seeds 
from the North American States, in which I had resided 
from 1/92 to 1800. Of Locusts I sowed but little seed. It 
was sown in the spring of 1806, and TWO of the plants 
were planted out in April, 1807 



The Locust. 



353. In 1808^ I got some more seed; and, in 1809, I 
planted FIVE of the plants. These, also, were planted in 
Jpril, and very late in April. 

354. In 1812, 1 sowed some more seed; and, in 1813 (in 
Jpril again), 1 planted out FIVE of the plants. 

355. These plants always made part of a plantation, con- 
sisting of several sorts of trees. I have not been to mea- 
sure these trees myself; but they have been very carefully 
measured under the direction of a gentleman, who lives in 
that village, and who has been so good as to send me a 
statement of the dimensions. The trees (for they are really 
timher-trees) were measured thus : First, the height to the 
tip-top ; Second, the number of inches round, at the bottom, 
then at three feet high, then at six feet high, then at nine feet 
high and then at twelve feet high. If there were more than 
one limb, both, or all the limbs, were to be measured as 
high up as twelve feet. Now, then, for the dimensions. I 
will speak of the soil afterwards. 

356. The two trees planted in April 1 807, raised from seed 
sowed: in 1 806. These trees have had seventeen years* 
growth. 

No. 1. 

Height, 42 feet. 

Inches Round, 68, at bottom, 

58, at 3 feet up. 

40, at 6 feet. 

32, at 9 feet, limb 1. 

22, at 9 feet, limb 2. 

25, at 12 feet, limb 1. 

18, at 12 feet, limb 2. 



The Locust. 



No. IL 

Height, 38 feet. 

Inches Round, 60, at bottom. 

34, at 3 feet, limb L 

34, at 3 feet, limb 2. 

31, at 6 feet, limb L 

33, at 6 feet, limb 2. 

22, at 9 feet, limb 1. 

22, at 9 feet, limb 2. 

22, at 9 feet, limb 3. 

17, at 12 feet, limb 1. 

18, at 12 feet, limb 2. 

18, at 12 feet, limb 3. 

The Jive trees planted in April 18Q.% raised from seed sowed 
in 1808. Fourteen years' growth. 

No. lU. 

Height, 38 feet. 

Inches Round, 28, at bottom. 

24, at 3 feet up. 

23, at 6 feet. 
23, at 9 feet. 

19, at 12 feeJt. 

No. IV. 

Height, 35 feet. 

Inches Round, 28, at bottom. 

22, at 3 feet up. 

21, at 6 feet. 

18, at 9 feet. 

17, at 12 feet. 



The Locust. 



No. V. 



Height, 39 feet. 

Inches Round, 26, at bottom. 



23, at 3 feet up. 
20, at 6 feet. 

14, at 9 feet, limb 1. 

13, at 9 feet, limb 2. 

13, at 12 feet, limb 1. 

12, at 12 feet, limb 2. 

No. VI. 



Height, 36 feet. 

Inches Round, 24, at bottom. 



22, at 3 feet up. 
20, at 6 feet. 
15, at 9 feet. 
13, at 12 feet. 

No. VII. 



Height, 35 feet. 

Inches Round, 22, at bottom. 

20, at 3 feet up. 



Hie Jive trees planted in April 1813, raised from seed sowed 
in 1812. Eleven years' growth. 



Height, 39 feet. 

Inches Round, 32, at bottom. 



25, at 3 feet up. 
24, at 6 feet. 
19, at 9 feet. 
16, at 12 feet. 



16, 
14, 
12, 



at 6 feet, 
at 9 feet, 
at 12 feet. 



No. Vlll. 



\ 



The Locust. 
No, IX. 

Height, 38 feet. 

Inches Round, 33, at bottom. 

24, at 3 feet up. 

23, at 6 feet. 
19, at 9 feet. 
16, at 12 feet. 

No. X. 

Height, 37 feet. 

Inches Round, 38, at bottom. 

30, at 3 feet up. 

25, at 6 feet. 

24, at 9 feet. 

18, at 12 feet, limb 1, 

19, at 12 feet, limb 2. 

No. XI. 

Height, 40 feet. 

Inches Round, 36, at bottom. 

30, at 3 feet up. 

26, at 6 feet. 
24, at 9 feet. 
19, at 12 feet. 

No. XII. 

Height, 40 feet. 

Inches Round, 38, at bottom. 

31, at 3 feet up. 
28, at 6 feet. 
26, at 9 feet. 

22, at 12 feet, limb L 
16, at 12 feet, limb 2. 



The Locust. 



357. Now, let it be observed, that these trees are grow- 
ing at Botley j that anybody may see them there; that there 
are thousands of persons who can bear testimony to the 
rise of the plantation j that the men who planted these trees 
are living, and on the spot too. 

358. Did any one of my readers ever know, or hear of, a 
growth of timber-trees to equal this ? Larches and Firs, 
even these soft things, were, perhaps, never known to get 
up and to swell out as fast as this. I reckon the years of 
growth from the year of 'planting out to this year, inclusive, 
though there is almost half a year less. The last tree, for 
instance (No. 12), has not been planted out eleven years 
until next April. And did Englishmen ever before hear cf 
such growth of timber far tetter than Oak f Look at the 
dimensions of that tree. Forti/ feet high, three feet and two 
inches round at the bottom, and its two limbs, at twelve feet 
from the ground, just the same bigness. I regret that I did 
not get the inches round at twenty feet from the ground. 
But, only think of such a growth of wood ten times as good 
as Spine Oak ! 

359. But, now, as to the soil. No soil can be too good 
for such trees. But, the Locust will grow on almost any 
soil. The reader will have perceived a great difference in 
the rate of growth of the three plantations ; and I am now 
about to show the cause of it. The first plantation (Nos. 1 
and 2) was made in deep, rich, fine mould. The third plan- 
tation (Nos. 8 to 12) was made in good loam, and by the side 
of rutming water. But the second plantation (Nos. 3 to 7) 
was made in a poor gravelly soil, having about a foot of 
earth, pretty well mixed with stones at the top, and then, 
as you went down, more and more of gravel. In short, 
very poor land indeed : a gravelly brow, with, at about four 

o 



The Locust. 



feet deep, a bed of sour clay under the gravel. This ground 
was, liowever, well trenched, in the manner recommended in 
this work : the gravel was kept at bottom, though the 
ground was all well moved to the depth of two or three 
feet. But, who can reasonably wish trees to grow faster 
than those of this second plantation. At the utmost, it is 
but fourteen years old, and the average height is thirty-six 
feet seven inches ; the average bigness round at bottom is, 
two feet four inches; and, at twelve feet high, the average 
bigness round is one foot five inches ; and the average dia- 
meter is more than seven inches. Where do you find such 
a growth as this, even of Firs f One of these trees is suffi- 
cient for a common gate-post ; sufficient to cut sills of dooi^s 
and windows out of. And always, straight or crooked, fit 
for ship-trunnels, which are not above eighteen inches long, 
and only about two inches through. You may plant to- 
day, and have wood for ship-trunnels in five or six years' 
time. 

360. I beg the reader to look at the shape of the above 
trees. The two first wei-e wanted to spread, and were^ 
therefore, pruned to have limbs come out not far from the 
ground. The heads of these are about twenty feet across. 
The others, from Nos. 3 to 12, were planted in close order, 
not at more than four feet apart. They were kept pruned 
to a single stem, until Sidmouth and Company drove me 
off early in 1817. That year, and 1818, they went un- 
pruned ; but I pruned them again at Christmas 1819, 
though some of them had then got limbs too big to cut off. 
My intention was, that they should have clear stems forty 
feet long. The prunings of these few trees produced a good 
large parcel of fire-wood ; and here is another important 
matter ; for the Locust wood, green or dry, is the very best 
for fuel. It is, at least, nearly equal to the Hickory, A log of 



The hocvs't. 



either, when once fairly on fire, will never go out. If it 
be on lire at one end, and you leave it to itself in that state, 
the fire will keep eating on till it has consumed the whole 
log. What a difference, even in this respect, between this 
wood and any wood that we have of common growth in 
England ! 

361. This tree grows even bettei' in England than in the 
United States of America, generally. Along the coast, in 
Pennsylvania, it will not thrive. It grows pretty well in 
some parts of Long Island ; but not nearly so fast and 
so clear as in England. They plant it in their fields, 
though they have so much of natural woods« They 
never neglect to cherish the Locust tree, though they 
slaughter every thing else. It does not grow so fast as in 
England. It is very dear, compared with other timber, A 
good large tree will fetch from ten to twenty pounds ; and, 
while this is the price of Locust, they cut up the most 
beautiful Oa/i:-trees (ov Jive-wood ! 

362. We have this famous tree, and have had it for about 
ahundred years, growing In our ornamental plantations. I 
saw a tree or two that had been cut down in the gardens 
of Lord Ranelagh, at Fulham, in 1819, just after my 
return from America. These trees were sold to a carpenter, 
and I bought one of them. 1 have applied the timber to 
several uses, such as dog-houses, a ivood-cutting horse, sills 
for a smoke-house. X have had a window-sill, made of this 
Fulham Locust, on purpose to show at the Office of the 
Register, where any gentleman may now see it. It is about 
seven inches through. I have also had some little blocks of 
this wood cut out, and they are at the Office of the Register 
for any one to look at, and, li good reasoft be given for it, to 

o2 



The Locust. 



be taken away. Some gentlemen may wish to send a block 
to friends who are not in London. If the booksellers who 
sell the Register in the country, should be applied to for 
the purpose, by gentlemen in their neighbourhood, a Mock 
of the wood may be sent to them. There is nothing like 
seeing in cases like this. 

363. Now let us see what are the inducements to the 
growing of the Locust. Its use, at the earliest stage, would, 
perhaps, be hop-poles. The ordinary height of a hop-pole 
is about fifteen or sixteen feet. To obtain poles of sixteen 
feet would require, in land worth a pound an acre, annual 
rent, six years' growth, and no more. You see, that, in my 
waterside plantation, there is an average height of thirty- 
nine feet. This is in eleveyi years. And, in the gravel- 
brow plantation the average height, at fourteen years' end, 
is thirty-six feet seven inches. You must cut off four feet, 
perhaps, to come down to wood big enough for the top of 
a hop -pole. This leaves thirty-two feet seven inches ; and 
that is sixteen feet three and a half inches for each of the 
seven years. But, it is well known, that, as to height, a 
tree goes much farther in the first four or five years, than 
it does in the same number of years afterwards. The fact^ 
as to these trees is, that they were fit for hop-poles at Jive 
years from the day of planting out. 

364. Four feet each way is the distance for planting ; 
and, then, an acre contains two thousand seven hundred and 
twenty. Let us see the cost. The items are : the rent of 
the land for six years ; the taxes and rates ; the trenching 
of the land, for, without this, half your time is lost ; the 
plants ; the planting ; the hoeing for three years. You 
must hoe twice, once early in June, and once early in 



The Locust. 



August (in diy weather), for the three first years; to keep 
out grass and weeds. After that^ nothing will grow under 
the shade, so complete will it be. 

365. We are going upon the supposition that the planter 
rents the Imid. A very disadvantageous supposition ; but, 
let us take it ; supposing him to have a lease of twenty-one 
years. He cleans his ground well and then, in the winter, 
this very winter, he has it trenched in the manner de- 
scribed in this work, keeping the good soil at the top, and 
especially if there be gravel or clay at the bottom : but, in 
short, trenching i?i the manner there described. I always 
planted in ^pn7; but, it is late ; and I would advise the 
supposed planter to do it earlier. I suppose him to have 
plants of the middle size. In his twenty-one years, he will 
have three (at least) cuttings of poles ; for, when he has 
cut his first crop, up springs another; and he will now, at 
this second cutting, gettico ov more jjolesfi'om each plant. He 
will have more at the third cutting. How much is a sixteen 
feet hop-pole worth, that does not require shaving, and that 
will last forty years? Aw Ash pole, when shaved, will last 
three years, and, a part of it, four years; but, a bit must come 
off* at the bottom of it in each of the two last years, which 
makes it but short; and, by this time, it is wholly unfit to 
stand against the wind, when loaded with the binds and leaves 
and hops. One Locust pole is, then, worth more than ten Jsh 
poles, because there is ieji times as much cost in carriage, and 
ten times, nay, thirty times, as much cost in pointing; besides 
the falling off in length in the Ash polo, during the two last 
years of its service. The carriage is, perhaps, upon an average, 
one-third part of the cost of the pole. Taking all these things 
into consideration, one Locust pole must be worth nearly 
a score of Ash poles of the same size and length. What is 



.The Locust. 



an Ash pole worth ? I should suppose, that, take Kent, 
Surrey, Sussex, Worcester, Essex, and all the hop-planta- 
tions upon an average, a fair Jsh pole of sixteen feet cannot 
be worth less than threepmce, besides carriage. At this 
rate, and taking all the differences of the two into view, a 
Locust pole is worth nearly a crown. But, suppose it to be 
only ten times as good as the Ash ; nay, suppose it to 
be only four times as good, it is then worth a shilling : and, 
indeed, it is worth a great deal more. How, then, stands 
the account of the acre of land for the twenty -one years ? 



At the end of the first Sias Years. 



Cr. 

2720 Poles, at Is 

Dr. £. s. d. 



136 



s. 



0 



Six years' rent 6 0 0 

Taxes and rates 4 0 0 

Trenching, at ^d. a rod .... 6 0 0 

Plants, at 11^. a hundred..,, 14 17 0 

Planting 0 15 0 

Six hoeings in three years ... 2 8 0 

Interest of money advanced.. 8 10 0 



42 10 0 



Profit 



£93 10 0 



At the end of the second Six Years. 



Cr. 

5440 Poles, at 1.?, 
Dr. 



£. s. d. 

272 0 0 



Six years' rent 

Taxes and rates . . . 
Interest on advances 



£. s. d. 

6 0 0 

4 0 0 

2 10 0 



12 10 0 



Profit 



£260 10 0 



The Locust, 



At the end of the third Six Years. 

Cr. £' s. d. 

5440 Poles, at 1^ 272 0 0 

Dr. £. s. d. 

Six years' rent ...6 0 0 

Taxes and rates 4 0 0 

Interest on advances 2 10 0 

12 10 0 

Profit .£260 10 0 

First six years 93 10 0 

Second 260 10 0 



£614 10 0 



366. This is the result at the end of eighteen years. 
Then the tenant may gnib up, or sell the stems and the 
three years' growth to the landlord. This is all plain, and 
all true ; but, it would, doubtless, be prevented by the 
increase of Locust plantations. However, this conclusion 
is undeniable. A product like this may be relied upon, as 
safely as may a crop of wheat of four quarters to the acre, 
in w^heat land which is in good order for the wheat. 

367. If the plantation were for timher trees, the distances 
ought still to be the same, and the whole of the trees might 
stand till each was seven or eight inches through at six feet 
from the ground. Then a part might be cut down. Pro- 
bably it would be a good way to leave the trees then, at 
eight feet apart, this would give two thousand and forty 
trees to cut down ; and would leave six hundred and eighty 
trees to grow on. The two thousand and forty trees cut 
down, are each of them fit to make a common gate post ; 
01', perhaps, to make from four to six window sills ; or a 
couple or more of door sills, or a couple of park-pale 
posts. These trees could not be worth less than five shil- 



The Locust, 



lings a-piece. The above trees from number three to 
number seven, fourteen years old, cannot, at this moment, 
be worth less than five shillings a-piece. Each of them 
must have, at least, three feet of timber; and what timber 
is there that anybody can buy for twenty-pence a foot ? 
The worth then, of this weeding of the plantation w^ould 
be, five hundred and fifteen pounds per acre at the end of 
fourteen years. The six hunch'ed and eighty trees remain- 
ing would be worth a great deal more than a pound a-piece, 
at the end of another seven years. Thus an acre of land, 
besides paying rent and taxes, would yield a profit of more 
than a thousand pounds in twenty years. 

368. When I made my little plantations of 1809, I 
planted, in a field, about six acres, partly of Locusts, partly 
of Ash, and other trees. In consequence of Ellenborough, 
Grose, Le Blanc, and Bayley sending me to prison in 
1810, this plantation got smothered with weeds, and a 
bailiff ploughed it up in 1811. A little piece of this plan- 
tation was left, it happened to be of Jsh. The plants stood 
at the rate of four thousand eight hundred and forty upon 
an acre. The trees upon the piece which was not ploughed 
up, are now worth, I should think, a couple of shillings 
each ; and that is at the rate of four hundred and eighty- 
four pounds an acre. So that there is nothing so very 'won- 
derful in the calculation relative to the Locusts, the profits 
of which, I have, indeed, greatly under-stated. 

369. In the year 1810, the Spring of that year, I sowed as 
many Locust seeds as I thought would produce plants suf- 
ficient for an hundred acres of land ; that is to say, two 
hundred and seventy-two thousand. I intended to plant 
these hundred acres in six distinct parcels of land, I having 
then six children ; and I intended that each child should 



Thb Locust. 



have one parcel, and that my sons should all be farmers. I 
saw the seeds come up in the Spring, most beautifully, 
and the scheme seemed to be in a fair way of accomplish- 
ment. But, alas ! Ellenborough, Grose, Lb Blanc, and 
Bayley laid hold of me, in the following month of July 1 
Away went the Locust trees ; and I became pitted, life for 
life, against the THING, under the existence of which, I 
had been condemned to live with felons for two years of 
my life ; to pay a fine of a thousand pounds to the King ; 
and to be held in bonds for seven years after that ; and all 
this because I had expressed my indignation at the flogging 
of Englishmen, in the heart of England, under a guard of 
German bayonets. The poor little Locust trees were buried 
amongst weeds and speedily destroyed ; but I took care of 
the sons, who, however, have been prevented from be- 
coming farmers, 

370. My plan had nothing in it that was not most rational ; 
and if I had now a hundred acres of land, or even fifty 
acres, I would not part with a single Locust plant, except 
to oblige a friend. It will not be long, I dare say, before I 
shall make another sowing, with much about such a design 
as I had before; and Ellenborough, Grose, and Le Blanc 
will not disturb my project, at any rate; for which God be 
praised ! When the plantation of the trees from number 
three to number seven was going on, one of the men ob- 
served that the trees were very small. I said, small as they 
are, we shall see them grow into great timber trees. One of 
the men, whose name was Gurman, said: Our grand-chil- 
dren may. Sir, but we never shall.'' — I beg you will speak 
for yourself,'' said I ; " for I expect to live to see them as hig 
round as my body," There is hardly a tree of them that is not 
that already. And, indeed, it is a sorrowful instance of hu- 
man frailty, that men are deterred from planting because they 



The Locust. 

think that they, themselves, shall not see the trees come to 
perfection. 

371 . In the above accounts of expenses, I have omitted 
the expense of pruning, or, at least, of felling and trim- 
ming the poles and trees. These expenses will fall greatly 
short of the amount of the fire-wood. The lop, however,will 
not be very great, seeing that the trees are to be constantly 
pruned, whether for poles or for timber. My trees of the 
two last plantations would have run out into limbs, like the 
two trees of the first plantation, if I had not been careful 
about the pruning. You must, also, be careful to prune 
in time ; and sometimes to give, not only a winter pruning, 
but a summer pruning also. This, however, is a very 
trifling matter ; for a clever man, with a good knife, will 
go over an acre in a day, and pick up his cuttings into the 
bargain ; though, perhaps, the summer cuttings are hardly 
worth picking up. 

37*2. I have only one thing more to observe as to the cul- 
tivation ; and that is, that I advise to cut down the trees, early 
in the month of May, the year after having planted them out in 
April. Early in May they begin to show their leaves, and 
then I cut them down within an inch of the ground, taking 
care to have a very sharp knife, and to hold the stem of the 
plant firm, so as to prevent the root from being loosened by 
the operation. If the plant be of a tolerable size when 
planted 5 if the ground be well prepared, and the planting 
Avell performed, the tree will send up a shoot of full four 
feet the first year. You must have your trees looked over 
in about a fortnight after cutting them down, and again, in 
about a month, to see whether there be more than one 
shoot coming out from each stem. If there be, you must 
rub off all but the strongest. If this should be neglected^ 



Thb Locust. 

which it ought not, by any means, you must take care, 
when winter comes, to have but one shoot to each stem, 

373. " It is a pity to cut it down !" How often have I 
heard this exclamation from persons, and persons of great 
sense, too, when I have advised them to cut their young 
trees down. Even gardeners and nurserymen are, in many 
cases, with difficulty prevailed upon to refrain from acting 
upon the notion of this exclamation ; which means, in 
fact, that it is a pity to have straight and fast-growing trees. 
A neighbour of mine, the late Mr. Clewer, of Botley, told 
me, that he sowed, when he was a young man, three acorns, 
in a row near to each other. I forget the number of years 
that he suffered the plants to remain when he cut two of 
them down close to the ground, leaving one of them un- 
touched. At the end of two years afterwards, he cut down 
again one of the two which he had cut down before, leaving 
the other two untouched. At the end of twenty years, the 
result was, what I cannot precisely recollect ; but, as far as 
I can recollect, the tree which had been cut down twice, 
was a great deal taller and bigger than the tree which had 
been cut down only once ; and that even this was half as 
tall again, and more than twice as big round at the bottom, 
as the tree which had not been cut down at all. If this 
be the case, with regard to trees that have never been trans- 
planted, how necessary must it be to cut down transplanted 
trees ! 

374. Great part of the foregoing paragraphs, relative to 
the Locust, were written and published in 1823. In 1825, 
I wished to produce proof of the quickness of growth, from 
the plantations or plantation of some other persons or per- 
son. An instance of the superiority of the Locust over 
other trees in point of quickness of growth, I had seen in 



The Locust. 



a plantation of Mr. Gunter, at Earl's Court, less than a 
mile from the village of Kensington. I therefore had the 
trees measured, one by one ; and published a list of the 
trees ; but afterwards I took the average of them, in order to 
save room. There were several trees of each of the sorts; 
about fourteen Locusts, twelve Scotch Fir, eight Syca- 
more, ten Spanish Chesnut, ten Beech, eleven Ash, and 
thirteen Oak. I added the dimensions together of the 
trees of each sort separately ; and then found the average 
measurement, by a division by the numbers that there 
were of each tree; the result being as follows ; 

375. I have now taken the plantation of Mr. Gunter, at 
Earl's Court, not a mile from Kensington, This planta- 
tion was made FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. It consists of 
Locusts, Scotch Firs, Sycamores, Limes, Spanish Chesnuts, 
Beeches, Ashes, and Oaks. I have, by permission of Mr. 
Gunter, had the trees of this plantation measured with 
great exactness. The whole of the trees were planted at 
one time. The soil is everyw^here the same. The trees were 
mixed in the plantation; and, therefore, this is as fair a 
trial, as complete a proof, as can possibly exist. Each tree 
was measured to ascertain the INCHES round at the bot- 
tom, then round si.v feet up, then round twelve feet up, then 
round the biggest limb, and then the height of the tree in 
FEET, was taken. To save room, I shall only give the 
average dimensions of each sort of tree ; so that here we 
have an account, from which a comparison can be made in 
a moment. The reader will be surprised to see the vastsupe-^ 
riority of the growth of the Locust, over even the softest 
and most fast-growing of our English trees ; but there are 
the trees to be seen by any gentleman that will apply to Mr. 
Gunter's bailiff, who, I believe, planted the trees. And, 
as to the soil, it is likely to be good; but it is the same for 



The Locust, 



all the sorts. Look, then, at this table. See the vast differ- 
ence. See one limb of every Locust nearly as big round 
as thebottom of the trunk of every Oak. See the Locusts, 
at twelve feet up, as big round as the Ash, at th e ground. 
See the Locust, in all the different girts, a great deal MORE 
THAN DOUBLE the average of all the other trees taken 
together; and^ finally, see the Locust twenty-seven feet 
high, while the average of all the other trees is less than 
eighteen feet. 





















t- B 

to O 


p s- 




SORT OF TREE. 


C n 

O V) 


s. ^ 


ST" 

n '» 


3 " 




?3 






a- o 






Pi 


y c 

s 


c o 


• c 

D 


«> oS;* 






c- 










31 


25 


12 


7 


27 




16 


10 


5 


2 


17 




15 


10 


5 


3 


22 




17 


8 


5 


2 


18 


Spanish Chesnut.. .. 


19 


14 


12 


2 


19 




12 


9 


5 




19 




12 


10 


5 


1 


17 


Oak 


11 


7 


4 




12 



376. This point is, then, settled ; and it is here proved, 
that it is an error to suppose, that quick- growing trees are, 
for that reason, trees of soft and perishable timber. It is cer- 
tain, that the American Red Cedar, and the Live Oak, which 
are everlasting timber, are very slow growers ; and our Oak 
is also a slow grower, as wi)! be seen above. Our Yew is 
the same, and it is everlasting. But our Elder, which is, 
when young, the very fastest grower that we have, is, though 
it gets to but little size, as durable as the Yew or the Locust, 

377« The Locust is not a tree to thrive to a very old age. 
It is in its prime in about thirty or forty years. There are 
many in Kew Gardens three feet through; and / bought, a 



The Locust. 



few years ago, two very large butts, cut down in the garden 
at the Stable Yard, St. James's Park. These were, 1 should 
think, full three feet through ; and there is a Locust-tree, in 
the garden of a school, formerly kept by a Miss Tasker, at 
Brook-Green, Hammersmith, with a trunk ten feet round, and 
guessed to be fifty -four feet high. But, one gieat excellence 
of this tree is, it is fit for use at any age above four or five 
years. At this first age, it will do for stakes. It has no 
sappy part. Mr. Gunter's trees would now make as good 
Locust'pins as any older tree. So that as to what age the 
tree will continue to thrive, is of no consequence at all. If 
Mr. Gunter's trees were now to be cut down, the fourteen 
Locusts would be worth ten times as much as all the rest of 
the plantation, though they make about a hundred and sixty 
in number. What, then ! will the Goveimment send to Ame- 
rica for Locust-pins, while they may have them grown in 
WooLMER Forest, in about ten or fifteen years ? Will they 
not plant these trees ? It will be done, at last, in spite of 
the pretty gentlemen, if not with their good will. They 
must, however, take care what seed they get. There are seve- 
ral sorts of Locusts, that I know of, and they are all called 
Locusts in America. As to getting the seed from France, 
where, as well as in England, the sorts have been planted 
promiscuously, and without knowing any thing of the quali- 
ties of the wood, such seed never can be relied on. I do 
not know the seed of some of the sorts, one from the 
other; but I know the plants the moment they appear above 
ground. But, if I have a channel that I can rely on for the 
obtaining of this seed, surely those may, who have hun- 
dreds of thousands to expend in naval victories on the Ser- 
pentine River, and on enterprises equally useful and equally 
glorious. 



378. 1 was just about to close, or rather to cease to 



The Locust. 



speak of the quickness of the growth of the Locust, when 
it occurred to me, that it might not be amiss to obtain an 
account of the progress of the plantations of Lord Folke- 
stone, now Earl Radnor, mentioned by me in the Re- 
gister during my " Rural Ride in the tall of 1826. The 
History of these plantations is the most interesting, that 
can possibly be, to all those who are engaged in planting 
or who intend to plant. In 1822, very late in the month of 
May, I sowed some Locust in my garden at Kensington. 
Not being prepared for the sale of them in 1823, and not 
having room to transplant them at Kensington, I got a 
friend in Sussex, to let me transplant them in a part of one 
of his fields. They were taken in a wagon, tied up in 
bundles just like so many fagots, and carried to the dis- 
tance of thirty miles. They were transplanted in rows at 
eighteen inches apart, the plants at about eight inches 
apart in the rows. They were thus put into the ground in 
very hot weather, between the 6th and the 8th MAY, both 
days inclusive. The next year, 1824, 1 began selling trees ; 
and I engaged, that Lord Folkestone should have the 
whole of those, which had been put into the field in Sus- 
sex. His Lordship intended to plant, and did plant them, 
on his estate at Coleshill, a village in Berkshire, lying on 
the road from the town of Farringdon, to the to^vn of 
Highworth, being rather nearer to the latter than the for- 
mer. They were taken up in the field in Sussex on the 
13th March (1824), the morning of the day being fine, 
but there being a heavy /a/Z of snow in the afternoon. The 
next day, it snowed again, and it being Sunday, the trees 
remained lying on the ground in bundles, until Monday 
the 15th when the wagon arrived to take them to Coles- 
hill. The bundles made a very great load for the wagon, 
rising about six feet above the raves or tops of the sides of 
the wagon. They were not packed up with straw or 



The Locust. 

mats; but a little fern was laid on the insides of the 
wagon, and over the top of the load, a single mat was 
put over the whole, and then the load was bound on with 
a rope like a load of straw. The trees were, I think, three 
days upon the road, and, of course, could not be planted 
out before the latter end of March. 

379. There appeared to me to be about forty or fifty 
acres in the whole of his Lordship's plantation, covering 
the side of a hill of gentle declivity, in a part of his park. 
The plantation consisted of all sorts of forest trees ; but, the 
Locusts were not mixed with the other trees, and were 
placed in clumps of one hundred, two hundred, three hun- 
dred, or more. When I saw them in the fall of 1826, they 
appeared to be, upon an average, of more than twelve feet 
high ; and, at a distance, they looked like clumps of trees 
which had been planted many years previous to the plant- 
ing of the trees of the rest of the plantation. 

380. I was desirous, upon the present occasion, to be able 
to state very accurately, what were the size and height of 
them NOW at the end of /owr i/ears of growth. With this 
view, I wrote to Mr. Daniel Palmer, who is Lord Rad- 
nor's bailiff at Coleshill, and who had planted the trees, to 
measure all the trees, one by one, contained in one of the 
above mentioned clumps. He took a clump which had 
ninety-two trees in it. He numbered the trees from one to 
ninety- two, and sent me on the 6th of this present month 
of March, the measurement of each individual tree* in the 
following manner : L The bigness in inches round just above 
the ground : 2. The bigness round the trunk at six feet above 
the ground : 3. The height of each tree, from the ground to 
the top of the topmost twig. I liave added these dimensions 
together, dividing, in each case, by ninety-two ; and the ave- 



The Locust. 

rage, casting away in each a trifling fraction, is as follows : 
Bigness just above the ground, eight inches and a half round : 
bigness of the trunk six feet from the ground, six inches 
and a half: height, sixteen feet. Mr. Palmer tells me, 
that this clump is inferior to some of the others. He men- 
tions one containing four hundred Locusts, the average size 
just above the ground, ten inches and a half; six feet from 
the ground, seven inches, and the height twenty-two 
feet. He mentions a third clump containing two hundred 
Locusts, nearly the same in bigness round as those in 
the last-mentioned clump, and in height nineteen feet. 
The reader will please to observe, that these trees were 
planted in the month of March 1824, and that, therefore, 
they have now been^ just four years in the ground. He 
will also please to observe, that the trees of the two last- 
mentioned clumps must at this very moment be fit for hop- 
poles, and that they will last in that capacity for twenty or 
thirty years at the least. The trees in the two last-men- 
tioned clumps would split, and be more than sufficiently 
big to make the end bars, of what are called hurdle gates 
for sheep and cattle, in which capacity they would last for 
a life-time or two, instead of lasting for four or five years, 
as is the case with OAK. These trees are, upon an average, 
now worth a shilling a-piece ; but, suppose they take 
another year to bring them to this point : they stand 
upon exactly five acres of ground; reckon rent and 
taxes at two pounds an acre (for j^lantations are ti/the free), 
that would amount to fifty pounds for the five years. 
Allow six pounds an acre for the trenching and culti- 
vation; that brings the charge to seventy-three pounds. The 
trees would now cost, out of my nursery, and finer trees 
than those were, for each hundred ten shillings, or five 
pounds a thousand ; or, for thirteen thousand six hundred, 
W'hich was the number sent to Coleshill, 68/., making the 

p 



The Locust, 



whole cliarge 1341. Thirteen thousand, six hundred tree?, 
at a shilling- a-piece, amount to sia; hundred and eighty 
pounds; and these trees will be worth that money next 
year, better than an Ash pole of twelve or fourteen years 
growth is worth six-pence. The profit then would be of 
these five acres of plantation 529/. ; exceeding any of the 
calculations made by me in the former part of this article. 

381. A plantation will be converted to different uses to 
accord with the different circumstances of the country in 
which it stands. There are no hop-grounds near to Coles- 
hill ; but there are always various uses for wood that is 
three inches through or nine inches round. Most likely 
these trees will be thinned out for some of those uses. One 
half left, that half would become posts sufficient for mode- 
rately sized gates, or paling, or for sills to windows or doors; 
and then they are worth a crown a-piece ; and whoever lives 
to see these trees at the end of ten years of growth, will 
see them worth that crown a-piece. So that a plantation 
of about a hundred acres would, at the end of twenty years^ 
in tolerably good ground, be a fortune, not to turn up the 
nose at even by the son or daughter of a peer. 

382. But, in countries where hop-poles are wanted, and 
where Ash poles sell on an average, I believe, at three 
pounds a hundred, what would be the value of a planta- 
tion like that of Lord Radnor? At the end of five years 
his trees would bring a shilling a-piece ; being cut down, 
each stem would send up two or three. He would have 
three times the number of shillings at the end of another 
five years ; for, they would become poles a great deal sooner 
the second time than the first. Mr. Withers, an eminent 
attorney near Holt in Norfolk, who has written very ably 
and very usefully on the subject of planting, and particu- 



The Locust. 



larly on the planting of Locusts^ has produced several 
shoots from his plantations of one year's growth from stems 
that have been cut down, and; amongst these shoots, there 
was one more than nine feet long, and six inches round at the 
bottom, coming from the stem of a young tree, which had 
been cut down, on account of its having been broken by 
the wind. Mr. Daniel Palmer tells me, that there were 
eight trees in the clump, where he measured the ninety- 
two, which were short and unworthy of the rest ; that he 
took these eight trees up last year^ planted them in another 
place, and cut them down to the ground at once \ and that 
they, though just removed, made shoots of six feet long 
last summer. It is, however, perfectly notorious, that the 
cutting down of trees causes them to shoot in this vigorous 
mann^j'. It is impossible, that, when a Locust pole can 
be had for a shilling, anybody will ever give three pence 
for any other sort of pole; and, it is also impossible, that 
any man of sense should not perceive, that this is the most 
profitable tree that can possibly be planted. Mr. Pal- 
mer gives me an account of the size and height of the 
trees in the general in the mixed plantation where the Locust 
plants stand ; and upon reducing these to an average, as 
nearly as I have been able, they appear to me to be less 
than one-third part of the size and height of the Locust ; 
to say nothing at all about the inferior quality of the wood. 
Not one penny of profit can come out of that general plan- 
tation for twenty years yet to come. Three crops of Locust 
poles, or two crops of Locust posts, may be taken off the 
ground before you can put an axe or a hook into the rest 
of the plantation ; and yet, even plantations like that are 
very desirable things. 

383. I have now left no doubt in the muid of any reader 
as to the great durability, the various important uses, and 

p2 



The Locust. 



the quickness of growth, of this tree. It remains for me 
to speak in detail of the manner of propagating it, which is 
only from the seed, which it bears in great abundance, but 
which will seldom come to complete perfection in England. 
My seed has always come from the neighbourhood of Har- 
risbourgh in Pennsylvania, and each seed is nearly double 
the weight of any that I have ever seen gathered in this 
country. The seed is gathered in the fall of the year, and 
it keeps best in the pod ; but, if made perfectly dry before 
it is put up, and always kept in a dry place, it will grow, 
though not so well perhaps, after being kept for several 
years. The seed is as nearly as possible in shape like a 
kidney bean, but not above a tenth part so big as the seed 
of the common white running bean ; its colour is a very 
dark brown. If sown in the fall of the year, or early in 
the winter, a part of it will come up in the spring of the 
first year ; but it will be only a small part ; and, the plants 
which do come up, will, if there be sharp frosts, be very 
nearly destroyed. I sowed this seed repeatedly, and had 
very little success. I asked Judge Mitchell in Long 
Island, who had a nursery of these plants even in that 
countrj^, how he got them to come up : he answered in two 
words, ^'boil them I " " Boil them," exclaimed I. The con- 
versation was turned off upon something else ; but when I 
found such great difficulty in getting the seeds up at Ken- 
sington, I recollected the precept of Ma. Mitchell, and 
I resolved to put it in practice, which I did with complete 
success ; not by absolutely boiling them,but by soaking them 
in boiling hot water. 

384. There is, however, a good deal of nicety attending 
this matter, therefore I shall describe the process very mi- 
nutely. When you have prepared the beds, in the manner 
described for the Ash, take in the morning as much seed 



The Locust. 



as you think you can conveniently sow before night; put 
it into a tub or some vessel, sufficient to hold the seed, with 
water five or six times as much in measure as the seed ; then 
take water at full boil out of your copper or other boiling 
vessel, pour it upon the seed ; give the seed a stir up amongst 
the water, cover over the top of the vessel close, and there let 
the seed remain for an hour or so. Then take off the cover of 
the vessel ; and raise up some of the seed by a ladle, or some 
such thing, and look at your seed, some of which you will 
find swelled to nearly double their former size, and some of 
them hardly augmented at all in size. Another hour, or 
perhaps less (and you ought to look frequently at them), 
will have made all the seeds swell, except a small part 
perhaps, and those will not grow at all. Then pour the 
seed, water and all, into a fine sieve, which will let the 
water through and keep the seed back, have some dry sand 
ready with a hole made in the middle of the heap, to put 
your seeds into, and then mix up the whole heap of 
sand with the seeds, about three gallons of sand to one gal- 
lon of seed. 

385. Your beds are already prepared, and now you scatter 
the seed over them along with the sand, in the manner de- 
scribed in the case of the Ash, Do not sow too thickly ; if you 
do, many of the plants will be destroyed by the others,and will 
be very weak and not fit to plant out the first year at least. If 
sowed thinly, and if the ground be good, and the beds kept 
clean, yoiu' plants will be four feet high by the month of 
October, quite fit to go into plantations out of the seed bed. 
My plants are always sold from the seed bed, and a very 
large part of them are fit to go into plantations at once; 
but this cannot be the case, if the plants be sowed thickly. 

386. I have never sowed Locusts till the month of April, 



The Locust. 



or very late in March ; because, by soaking they are made 
to come up in the space of a fortnight, and they should not 
come up, till the sharp frosts be all gone. But, when seeds 
have been soaked in this manner there is great care re- 
quired, to keep them from the sun and the wind : they 
should therefore be covered as quickly as possible after they 
have been scattered on the bed, and the earth that goes on 
them should be made very fine. The covering must not be 
more than an inch deep, and must be laid on very evenly, 
and with the greatest possible care, so that no open- 
ings may be left, for the sun or wind to find access through. 
If the weather be dry, as it ought to be for the work of 
sowing, water the beds gently, with a fine-rose watering- 
pot, the second day after sowing ; but not by any means 
while the earth is fresh at top; for if earth be freshly 
moved when you water, it runs together, and binds over 
the top, where it forms a shell, which is difficult for the 
heads of the plants to penetrate. Last spring, I had several 
beds of various seeds which failed, but 1 wished to wait, 
as late as I possibly could, to give the seeds a chance to 
come up. In the middle of June, or thereabouts, seeing that 
the seeds would not come up in these beds, and not liking to 
let them remain all the summer without a crop, I deter- 
mined, late as the season was, to sow them with Locusts, 
which I did in my usual manner ; but, the weather being 
dry and hot, I not only watered the beds very well, the day 
after the seeds were sown, but kept them sheltered from 
the sun by mats, until the seeds began to come up. I never 
had so regular and so perfect beds of LocusT-plants before. 
They were upon an average a foot and a half high in the 
month of October, and nine-tenths of them might have 
gone out into plantations at once. 

387. Such very late sowing, is not, however, to be at- 



Thb Locust. 



tempted, unless you be resolved to take all the precautions 
which I took. If wet weather should happen to come the day 
after sowing, or even shady or moist weather, you need not 
resort to the covering with mats; but otherwise, the late 
sowing is not to be attempted without shading. 

388. When a Locust tree is a foot and a half, or two feet 
high, it is quite fit to go into any plantation, even amongst 
other trees; for, if cut down in the month of April, the 
year after planting, or even in May, it will soon over-top 
other trees; but if the plants be really too small to put out 
at once, they should be assorted with care, the stout ones 
in one lot, and the weak ones in another ; and thus, pre- 
cisely after the manner of the Ash, put into the nursery, the 
roots having first been properly pruned. 

389. I have, in former parts of this article, said enough 
about distances in the plantation; but I must here add, that, 
when old coppices of a mixture of underwoods, want 
Jilling up, there is nothing like the Locust. In such cop- 
pices, there are frequently vacant spots, of a rod or more 
square. The land in these spots produces nothing but grass 
and weeds. The grass can never be eaten off by cattle 
without destruction to the underwood ; so that the fencing, 
the rent, and the taxes for these spots of land, are all thrown 
away. Those who take care of their underwoods, dig 
holes therefore in their vacant spots, and plant young trees 
to produce new stems. These, however, go on very slowly 
compared with the Locust. If the Locust were planted 
the year after they are sowed, in a hole made about six feet 
over, and three or four plants in each hole ; and if they 
were cut down the year after planting, they would always 
overtake the old coppice, and produce hop-poles as quickly 
as these would be produced by the old stems of the Ash or 



The Locust. 



CiiESxuT, which mount faster, or at least become a pole 
sooner than any of the rest of our underwoods. 

390. As underwood, the Locust would not only make 
poles; but stakes to last for a life-time. Michaux says, that 
when as big as one's wrist, or less, they are cut down, on 
the borders of the Garonne, in France, and are cleft in two, 
to make vine props or stakes, and that in that capacity they 
serve, slender as they are, for twenty years. Nine times 
out of ten, our dead hedges, whether made of bushes or of 
rods, tumble down at the end of two years, owing princi- 
pally to the perishable quality of the stakes, which rot from 
the top of the ground downwards, in a very short time. A 
hedge made with Locust stakes would stand till the rods and 
the bushes were absolutely rotten ; and these being not ex- 
posed to the working of the wet and the ground upon them, 
would last much longer than they now do. At any rate, 
the stakes would still remain good, and these are the most 
expensive part of the things composing a dead hedge. 

391. I have before mentioned the great utility of the 
Locust in the making of pins in the putting rafters together, 
or in the fastening of rails into posts. However small, if 
big enough for a pin, the youngness of the wood is of no 
consequence; for the young is nearly as durable as the old. 
Teeth for the heads of wooden rakes; stuff to split into 
little pales for making hurdle gates for sheep; stuff for 
espeliers for gardens : all these would come out of the cut- 
ting down of a Locust coppice. No part of it, except the 
mere brush, would fail to answer some valuable i)urpo3e ; 
and even the brush, though it be green, burns better than 
the bnish of any other wood that I know any thing of, the 
HicKORV only excepted. 



Locust (Honky). 

392. I then bring to a close this very long article, but, 1 
trust, not longer than it is interesting, by repeating my ear- 
nest exhortation to all those who plant trees, to examine 
well all that I have said upon the subject; and if they do 
so examine, I am sure that the result will be, that this fine 
and most valual^le tree will become common throughout the 
whole kingdonl. 

liOCVST (KONEV). 

In Latin, Gleditsia Triacanthos ; in French, Ftvier, 

393. The botanical characters are : — It has male and hermaphrodite flowers 
in the same katkin, and female flowers in different plants. The male kat- 
kins are lon^. compact, and cylindrical, and have each a three-leaved small 
empalement; they have three roundish petals, which spread open in the form 
of acup;they have a turbinated nectarium, the mouth of which, afterwards, 
grows to the parts of fructification ; they have six slender stamina, Avhich are 
longer than the petals, terminated by oblong compressed summits. The 
hermaphrodite flowers in the same katkin are situated at the end ; these 
have empalements, petals and stamina like the male; and have a germen, 
style and seeds like the female, which are situated in different trees, and are 
disposed in a loose katkin ; these have a five-leaved empalement, and five 
oblong petals, with two short thread-like nectariums, and a broad germen 
longer than the petals, supporting a short reflexed style, crowned by a thick 
stigma. Tije germen afterwards becomes a large flat pod, with several 
transverse partitions, having a pulp in each division, surrounding one hard 
roundish seed. 

394. This is sometimes called the Sweet Locust; but 
Honey Locust is its general name in America. This tree 
seldom attains a height exceeding fifty feet. It is a very 
beautiful tree, having the leaf very much resembling that 
of the sensitive plant, and keeping fresh and perfectly green 
all the summer. The French, when they took possession of 



Locust (Honey). 

Canada and the Mississippi, gave it the vulgar name of 
Feviei', because they found it bearing its seed in a pod a 
good deal resembling a very long and narrow-podded bean, 
that kind of bean, which, in French, is called Fh)e, or 
F^e de marais. The tree seldom gets to be more than a 
foot and a half through at the butt. jMichaux says, that 
the timber is not valuable, and that the tree, besides its 
value in the ornamental way, is principally valuable for the 
forming of hedges; and this is, in reality, its great use. 
The plant comes up quickly, grows fast, has numerous 
branches, and those very fine ; full as fine as those of the 
Hawthorn ; and these branches are armed with thorns, 
which, asMiCHAux says, render the hedge perfectly impe- 
netrable. Each thorn is nearly two inches long, stout at 
the bottom where it starts from the branch, and regularly 
diminishing in size till it comes to the point, which is as 
sharp as that of any needle that ever was made, and a 
great deal more difficult to break, or snap off. As if this 
single dagger were not enough, there come out at about 
half an inch from the bottom of the thorn, two smaller 
thorns, each about a third of an inch long, but one a little 
longer than the other. These two side thorns point in an 
angular line from the side of the main thorn ; or, to speak 
more properly, the point of an acute triangle is formed by 
each of the little thorns, and one side of the main thorn. 
So that here is a dreadful weapon : here are three of the 
sharpest things ever seen in the world, pointing at every crea- 
ture that a])proaches the hedge. 

395. I will now speak about the mode of raising the 
trees; and then about that of putting them into hedges. 
The seed, which comes in a pod above described, is a great 
deal larger than the seed of the Locust : it is, I should 
think, more than three times as large. It is precisely as 



Locust (Honey). 

hard ; which is pretty nearly as hard as a stone. It must 
be had from America, for I have not the smallest idea of 
its ripening in England : but it may be had at a reasonable 
rate, and a comparatively small quantity will suffice for the 
making of a very considerable hedge. 

396. The SEED is to be prepared for sowing by soaMngy 
in precisely the same manner as is directed in the case of 
the Locust. You must pay the same attention to prevent 
the seed from bursting from over heat, and take all the 
precautions about watering, shading, and every thing 
else, just as pointed out in the case of the Locust, in para- 
graph 384. When the young plants come up, they are 
to be treated in just the same manner as is directed in the 
case of the Locust. If sown in good ground, and kept 
very clean, and managed properly throughout the summer, 
they would be eight inches high in the fall of the year. 
They need not be put into a nursery if your ground be 
ready for planting them to form a hedge. They are ready 
to go out at once, and therefore it would be useless to put 
them into a nursery. 

397. As to the manner of planting the hedge, in the 
first place the ground should be well trenched, and other- 
wise prepared. The young trees should then be planted 
in two rows, one row being about fifteen or eighteen inches 
from the other. The plants should be about fifteen or 
eighteen inches apart in the row, and the plants in one 
row standing opposite the middle of the intervals of the 
other row. 

398. This work of planting may be done either in 
the fall or in the spring. The ground ought to be 
kept quite clear from grass and weeds the first year 



Locust (Honey). 

after planting. If all be done well, the trees, without 
being cut down, which they ought not to be till they 
have stood a year, will make good shoots, and will 
particularly increase in size of stem. The next spring ; 
that is to say, after they have stood a year, you cut 
them down close to the ground. Each will then send up 
three or four stout shoots. Whenth^se have grown through 
the summer, take out any little weak shoots close to the 
stem, and cut down the stout ones to within three or four 
inches of the ground. Out of these stems will now come 
such quantities of shoots, that the fence will be complete 
in a very short time, and only want trimming, clipping 
and the like, according to your fancy. The whole of the 
space, between the two rows, will be filled up by side 
shoots; and the hedge will be quite impassable by any 
animal bigger, at any rate, than a rat or a cat. It would 
remain quite undisturbed ; for nobody and nothing, made 
of flesh and blood, would attempt to assail it; and, besides 
all the rest, the foliage is so very fine, that even as an orna- 
ment, it would be desirable to have it in a hedge. Our 
hawthorns are very beautiful ; in loose hedges they have 
bloom as well as leaf; but we have to set against this the 
early fading of their leaves, their great liability to be at- 
tacked and devoured by caterpillars, and all the ugliness, 
and indeed injury, arising from that circumstance. Now, 
the leaf of the Honey Locust is attacked by no insect, and 
its green is as fresh in August as it is in May. As a plant 
to form a hedge, this surpasses all others, and for that use 
I strongly recommend it, and hope to see it become of very 
general use. 



In Latin, Acer; in Frenchj Er able, 

399. The botanical characters are : — The impalementof thejflower ismono- 
pelatous, coloured and cut into five sharp segments at the brim, and is per- 
manent. The corolla is compoed of five oval petals which spread open and 
are larger than the empalement. It has eight short and awl-shaped stamina, 
crowned by simple summits. The germen is compressed and immersed in 
the large perforated receptacle. The style is slender ; it having two acu- 
minated stigma, which are reflexed. The capsules are two, joined at their 
base ; they are roundish, each being terminated by a large wing, inclosing 
one roundish seed in each. 

400. There are many varieties of the Maple ; and some 
of them are very beautiful trees. Our Sycamore is a Maple, 
and is called by the French the Grand Erable, or Great 
Maple, We have a Maple in our woods ; it is a very tena- 
cious inhabitant of coppices, hedge-rows and hedges; a 
very hardy thing, makes very good fuel, in fagots ; but it 
makes no poles, no hoops, no rods, no hurdles ; and it 
scarcely ever becomes a tree as big as one's thigh. It is 
mere bmshwood; and of no more use as a tree, than the 
poppies, or wild parsnip, or wild carrot, are as cattle-food. 
Our Maple is a weed of the woods, and we burn it, because 
we know not what else to do with it. 

401. The American Maples are in great and beautiful 
variety; and our own Sycamore is a very fine and stately 
tree, grows to a great size, is wonderfully hardy, and loaded 
with an uncommon portion of leaf. There is no tree, I 
believe, that has so great a weight of leaf in proportion to 
its height and size as the Sycamore. It will, too, grow 
in any soil, even the shallowest and the worst. It is fre- 



Maple. 



qiiontly seen on the bleakest hills throughout the high parts 
of Hampshire and Wiltshire, where it appears to have been 
left quite alone by the destruction of all other trees 
around it. 

402. The timber of our Sycamore is white and soft, and 
not valuable by any means ; this is not the case with the 
American Maples, which produce some of the finest wood 
in the world. However, the manner of raising the plants 
is the same in all cases. No man ever dreamed of raising 
English Maple ; but our Sycamore is constantly raised in 
great numbers, and it is hardly to be believed, that any 
nurseryman ever raised them, except from seed, I will 
first give an account of raising of Maples from seed, and of 
managing them until the time of planting out; and then, 
when I come to speak of the several sorts of American 
Maple, I will give my opinion respecting the forming of 
plantations with them. They are most beautiful trees, 
varying very much as to their leaf and their form, and they 
produce not only the sugar, of which so much has been 
said, but some of the most beautiful wood, for various pur- 
poses, that ever was seen in the world. 

403. The SEED of the Maple resembles somewhat the 
seed of the Ash. That of our Sycamore comes in pairs, each 
seed having a broad wing, and a pair of the seeds the boys 
call spectacles^ which they are not much unlike, and which, 
pressed upon the nose, will hang on there, like an old- 
fashioned pair of grandmother's spectacles. When the 
seeds are ripe, they should be gathered, made perfectly dry 
in the sun ; and sown in beds in the month of November, 
in the same manner as directed for the Ash : all the rules 
there laid down are to be followed with the greatest exact- 
ness in this case. 



Maple. 



404. There are several of the Maplkp, the seed of which 
do not come up the first year; and they will not come up 
the first year, do what you will to them. The safe way, 
therefore, is, as some do, and some do not, come up the first 
year, always to sow in the month of November, in the 
manner above directed. If they come up the first year, it 
is well ; if they do not, they will be apt to come up very 
early the second year; and if a sharp frost come just after 
their coming up, it will assuredly cut them off; so that you 
must watch them well throughout the months of February 
and March, and if you see frosts approaching, you must 
cover the beds to protect the plants. 

405. When the plants are up, they must be weeded with 
the greatest possible care ; and kept well weeded, and the 
earth stirred amongst them a little, during the whole sum- 
mer. In the month of October, they will, if they have 
been well taken care of, be more than a foot high ; and, 
then, they are to go into a nursery in the same manner as 
directed for the Ash. They have very good and bushy roots ; 
they move extremely well, and grow very fast. They 
should be sorted in the manner directed for the Ash ; in 
order that the plants of the same height and size may 
stand together; and may be ready to be taken out to go 
into avenues or plantations, w^ithout any more sorting. The 
small ones may stand in the nursery a couple of years ; but 
the large ones should stand there but one year; for the 
younger they are when they go out, the greater their pro- 
gress, the straighter their form, the larger and loftier they 
become, and the more durable their lives. 

406. If put into plantations, the distances ought to be 
rows four feet apart, plants four feet apart in the row, those 
of one row to stand opposite the middle of the intervals in 



Maple. 



the other row. The IMaple would not be of much value as 
poles ; but young trees of this sort would be of more value 
than the common Fli', at any rate and, in order to have a 
wood of Maples, the thinning out at different times must 
be carried on precisely in the same manner as directed for 
the Beech : to which directions the reader will be pleased 
to refer. As to the felling of the Maple, like other deci- 
duous trees, the bark of which is of no value, it ought to be 
done while the leaf is off. Nothing good comes up from the 
stem of the Maple, and therefore it ought to be grubbed 
up roots and all, that the ground may be employed with 
something else. 

407. The American Maples are worthy of particular at- 
tention. The wood of most of them, as T have said before, 
is singularly valuable. There are seven of them. First, 
the White Maple [Acer Eriocarpum) 3 second, the Red 
Flowering Maple {Acer Rubrum) ; third, the Sugar Maple 
{Ace?' Saccharinuin) ; fourth, the Black Sugar Maple {Acer 
Nigrum) ; fifth, the Moose Wood {Acer Striaium) ; sixth. 
Box Elder {Acer NegiindoJ ; seventh, Mountain Maplb 
{Acer Montamim), The first of these is whitish on the 
under side of the leaf : it does not attain to a very great 
size, and the wood of it appears, from Michaux, not to be 
very valuable ; but it is a very beautiful tree, and the wood 
is sometimes used for the inlaying of furniture. The 
second, or Red Flowering Maple, is a tree which rises to 
the heighth of seventy feet ; it grows best in very moist 
ground ; and in New Jersey and Pennsylvania there are ex- 
tensive marshes, called Maple Swamps, entirely covered 
with this tree. 

408. The wood is made use of for many purposes, espe- 
cially ornamental furniture. It is this tree which produces 



Maple. 



what is called the Curled Maple/' famous for its beauty 
throughout the United States. I have a chest of this wood, 
the boards of which are about two feet, or rather more, 
broad. Each board, if the chest were taken to pieces, is fit 
for the making of a very beautiful table. Michaux says, 
that, before mahogany became generally fashionable in 
the United States, the finest furniture was made of Red 
Flowering Maple, and that bedsteads are still made of it, 
" which in richness and lustre exceed the finest mahogany. 
"At Boston, some cabinet-makers saw them into plates 
" for inlaying mahogany. But the most constant use of 
" the Curl Maple is, the forming of stocks for fowling- 
" pieces and rifles, which, to elegance and lightness, unite 
" a strength resulting from the accidental direction of the 
" fibre." I have received, this year, some gun-stocks of 
this wood, and also some Broom Corn Brooms, the handles 
of which are of this wood. A broom and a gun-stock may 
be seen at my shop at Fleet-street, and, after seeing which, 
the reader will want no further inducement to endeavour 
to rear some of these trees ; but it must be again observ^ed^ 
that the tree does not attain to any considerable size, except 
in land approaching to a swamp or marsh. 

409. The third sort, or Sugar Maple, is sometimes called 
a Rock Maple, or Hard Maple. It is a native of the colder 
parts of North America, and is nowhere more abundant 
than in Canada, New Brunswick, and in that miserable 
country Nova Scotia, or New Scotland. It rises to the 
height of from fifty to eighty feet, but does not attain a 
very great size of trunk. The wood of this tree is used by 
wheelwrights for axle-trees and spokes, and for various 
other purposes of great and general utility. Besides this, 
it produces most beautiful wood for cabinet use ; which 
wood has been, and is, called by cabinet-makers, the 

Q 



Maple. 



Bird's-eye Maple. It is most highly vahied for inlaying 
mahogany, for making bedsteads, portable writing-desks ^ 
and is indeed looked upon, I believe, as wood exceeding all 
others in beauty. But, the great use of this tree might be 
the making of sugar. I remember seeing several trees in 
Nova Scoiia which were under the operation of sugar- 
making. This work is begun in the month of March, long 
before the snow quits the ground in Nova Scotia. Little 
ti'oughs are placed against the tree, which have perforations 
made in them eighteen or twenty inches from the ground, 
the perforations being made in an obliquely ascending 
direction. Care should be taken that the augers do not 
enter more than half an inch within the wood. Tubes are 
put into the holes, to conduct the sap down into the troughs. 
The sap is every day collected, and temporarily poured into 
casks, fi'om which it is drawn out to fill the boilers. The 
evaporation is kept up by a brisk fire, and the heat is 
maintained until the liquid be reduced to a syrup, after 
which it is left to cool (having been carefully skimmed 
during the boiling), and then strained through some thick 
'woollen stuff, to separate the remaining impurities. Maple 
sugar, manufactured in this way, " is (says Michaux) lighter 
" coloured, and in proportion to the care with which it is 
made, and the judgment with which the evaporation is 
" conducted. It is superior in quality to the brown West 
" India sugar, generally used in the United States : its 
" taste is as pleasant, and it is as good for culinary pur- 
" poses. When refined, it equals in beauty the finest sugar 
^' used in Europe ; but, from prejudice, it is made use of 
" only by the people where it is made. Wild and domestic 
" animals are inordinately fond of the Maple juice. I feel 
" authorised in recommending this tree for propagation in 
*^ all the northern countries of Europe.'* Now, as these 
fiicts are in^ontcstible ; as sugar is become a sort of neces- 



Maple. 



sary of life ; as we never can have cane sugar without the 
help of slaves ; seeing that nobody, without dire compul- 
sion, will work in the producing of it ; what a noble open- 
ing is here for the indefatigable exercise of the humanity 
of Mr. Buxton and his associates ! It is now about fifty 
years, I believe, since Massa Wilberforce commenced his 
eulogised labours in favour of the blacks. If he had then 
caused a hundred quarters of Sugar Maple Seed to be 
brought from Nova Scotia, which he might have done at 
a thousandth part of the expense that silly people were put 
to in purchasing the Negro tracts in the course of one 
year ; and if he had caused those seeds to be sown, 
and all the humane people had joined together in causing 
the trees to be planted and cultivated, there would have 
been more sugar raised in England at this time than would 
have been necessary for twice its consumption. But, is it 
too late now ? It never can be too late to do good ; and 
here is good unequivocal. The tree would first give sugar, 
and, when cut down, make beautiful tables to use the sugar 
upon ; beautiful chairs to sit upon while sipping the sugar ; 
and besides this, Michaux tells us that " the ashes of the 
" Sugar Maple are rich in the alkaline principle," and that 
" it may be confidently asserted that they furnish four-fifths 
" of the Potash exported to Europe from Boston and New 
York." Nor do the virtues of this tree end even here ; 
for MicHAUx says, that the Charcoal of this wood is pre- 
ferred to every other, it being heavier, and of course 
stronger, and it must therefore be the best for the manu- 
facture of that article, in the making of which our old 
despised Dog Wood has become so highly esteemed, which 
article is so notoriously efficacious in the thinning of a 
" surplus population," an object which now appears to be so 
near to the hearts of his Majesty's faithful Commons. 

q2 



410. The fourth, or Black Sugar Maple, differs very 
little from the Common Sugar Maple ; but, as a tree, it 
has a more ample foliage than the other, and is very 
proper for the forming of avenues and adorning parks 
and gardens. 

411. The fifth sort is called the Moose Wood ; in some 
parts of America it is called the Striped Maple, which is 
descriptive of the bark of the tree ; but it was called 
Moose Wood by the first settlers, because, the Moose (an 
enormous Deer) was observed to subsist during the winter 
and the spring upon the young twigs of this tree. It is a 
tree that grows extremely fast, and is very beautiful 
as a tree. The wood is white, and does not appear 
to be very valuable. Its principal use in its native country 
is furnishing the farmers, at the close of the winter, with 
the means of sustaining their cattle. It is amongst the 
very earliest trees in America, whose vegetation announces 
the approacli of spring. As soon as the buds begin to 
swell, the horses and cattle are turned into the woods to 
browse the young shoots ; and, poor as this resource may 
appear, it is a very great one, since the twigs are full of 
saccharine matter. In England this tree can hardly be 
planted except for ornament, but it is a very fast grower, 
and very ornamental. 

412. The sixth sort, or Box Elder, or Ash -leaved Ma- 
ple, does not mount to a great height ; Michaux does not 
appear to attach any very great importance to it, but regards 
it merely as an ornamental tree. It grows very fast, and is 
very pretty. This is not saying much in its favour, and I 
cannot very well see why Michaux recommends it to be 
planted in coppices, to be cut every three or four years, 



Maple. 



when, he says, It would afford a profitable product in its 
"sprouts,'* The translator of Michaux was a son of an 
American senator, and I have not Michaux in French, at 
hand. Mr. James Hillhouse (the translator), who dedicates 
the translation to his father, whom 1 had personally the 
honour to know, as the most long-winded and pointless 
speech-maker that I ever happened to hear of, save and 
except our own Mr. Brougham. This Mr. James Hill- 
HousB, the translator, little imagined that he would make 
the mouths of our Cockneys water, when he was talking 
of whole coppices of ^'sprouts," which, to a certainty, 
they would interpret into those delightful things, which, 
under the names given to the shoots that come from the 
stumps of plants of the Bressica kind, and which are 
always at hand in every season of the year, cause such 
abundant employment and custom to the apothecaries and 
druggists and the vinegar and pepper merchants of every 
part of this wonderfully populous kingdom. 

413. The seventh and last sort, is the Mountain Maple, 
which I have seen a great many times in America, but 
never saw it of a height above eight or ten feet. It ap- 
pears to have no properties that render it valuable ; but it 
is a very pretty shrub, and I could not refrain from men- 
tioning it on this occasion, in order to include all the Ame- 
rican Maples. 



TZ£i: MOUNTAZXr ASK 



In Latin, Sorbus ; in French, Sorbies. 

414. The botanical characters are : — The flower has a spreading concave 
permanent empalement of one leaf, indented ia five parts ; it has five 
roundish concave petals, which are in the empalement, and about twenty 
awl-shaped stamina, which are also inserted in the empalement, terminated 
by roundish summits. The germen is situated under the flower, supporting 
three slender styles crowned by erect-headed stigmas ; it afterwards become » 
a soft umbilicated fruit, enclosing three or four oblong cartilaginous, seeds. 

415. This is neither timber-tree nor underwood ; and I 
mention it in this book only because it is found here and 
there in almost all our coppices. I know of no utility 
that belongs to it, and cannot guess at the reason for calling 
it an Ash, which it resembles in no respect whatever. It 
is planted, as an ornamental shrub, merely on account of 
its large bunches of red berries, which it bears in great 
profusion, and which hang on till a late season of the year, 
unless the birds be very much pressed for food, and then 
the berries disappear very quickly. 

416. This tree throws out a great number of suckers, and 
from these it is generally propagated. The suckers are 
dug up when small, put into a nursery for a year or two, 
and then planted out where they are to stand. But, a 
great part of the merit of this shrub, consists in its being 
somewhat lofty ; and to have it lofty, and with a straight 
trunk, it ought to be raised from seed. The seed, like that 
of the Hawthorn, has a pulp on the outside, a hard shell 
next to the pulp, and within the shell is the kernel. 



The Oak. 



417. The seed ought to be gathered when ripe^ and then 
managed and sown in the same manner as directed for the 
seed of the Hawthorn. Sometimes, however, the seed of 
the Mountain Ash will come up the first year ; and, there- 
fore, as the space required for the sowing of this seed will 
necessarily be small, it may be as well to sow it, very nearly, 
as soon as it is gathered. If the plants come up the first 
year, or only a part of them, it will be sufficient; for a 
great number of such plants never can be wanted. 

418. When the plants come up, they must be carefully 
weeded and kept clean throughout the summer. In the 
fall they will be nearly a foot high, and then they ought to 
go into a nursery for two or three years. Not more than 
three ; and then, when planted out, it will not be necessary 
to cut them down the year after planting, for they have 
very good roots to remove ; they strike off quickly ; and if 
planted in the month of November or in March, the roots 
will supply the plants with sap, without any cutting down. 
If you wish the tree to be lofty, you must prune off the side- 
shoots, as the plant advances in height, in the manner 
directed in paragraphs 127 and 149. When it has got the 
height of clear trunk that you wish it to have, you leave oft* 
pruning, and the tree then presents you with a spreading 
and ornamental head. 



THIS OAK. 

In Latin, Qiiercus; in French, Chene. 

419. The botanical characters are: — It has male and female flowers on 
the same tree ; the male flowers are disposed in a loose katkin ; these have 
ail empalement of one leaf, divided into four or five segments; they have 
no petals, but many short stamina, terminated by large twin summits. The 
female flowers, which sit close to the buds, have a hemispherical thick 
empalement of one leaf, which is rough and entire, almost hiding the flower. 



The Oak. 



which has no petal, but a small oval germen supporting' a single five-pointed 
style, crowned by single permanent stigmas. The germen afterwards 
becomes an oval nut, or acorn, with a thick cover, having one cell, the base 
of which is fixed into the empalement or cup. 

420. The family of Oaks is numerous indeed. Perhaps 
there are ten or a dozen different varieties amongst the 
native Oaks of England, each somewhat distinguished from 
all the rest, whether by the shape of the leaf, the size of 
the leaf, the colour of the leaf; by the size, colour, or 
shape of the acorn. If you stand upon a hill, and look 
down upon a pretty large Oak wood, which you do almost 
anywhere in the Wealds of Surrey, Sussex, or Kent, at any 
season of the year, from the time that the bud begins to 
open until the leaves be completely off, you will perceive 
that there is a very great variety of Oaks. You will see 
one sort nearly in full leaf, when the buds of other sorts 
are only beginning to burst. In the autumn you will see 
some of the trees retaining their perfect green, while others 
are wholly without a leaf. In the middle of summer some 
trees are of a dark green, others of a pale green ; so that, 
in all probability, if the thing could be exactly ascertained, 
there is as great a variety of Oaks in England as there is 
in America; but, at any rate, the manner of propagating, 
planting, training up, and applying all deciduous Oaks, are 
one and the same ; so that, in giving directions for these 
works, with regard to the common English Oak, I shall be 
giving directions for the propagation and management of 
all Oaks, except the American Live Oak ; which is an Ever- 
green, or rather one of the Evergreen Oaks, and which will 
demand a different treatment. 

121. As to the outward appearances of the Oak tree, its 
jiuieial height and size, the uses of its bark as well as of its 
timber ; these are all as well known to us, as are the out- 
ward appearances, the size and the uses of the grain of 



The Oak. 



which our bread is made ; but how to take an acorn, and 
go to work with it in that way which is best calculated for 
the producing of the timber and the bark, is not so well and 
so generally known : it is my business, therefore, to com- 
municate to my readers the knowledge which I possess on 
the subject, reserving an account of the different sorts of 
Oaks, and of their different qualities, to follow the direc- 
tions which are applicable to all. 

422. The Oak is raised from seed, and from seed only ; 
and that well-known seed is the acorn. Acorns are to be 
picked up under the Oak trees in the month of November; 
but you must take special care that the pigs have not been 
under the trees before you; for if they have, and if the 
quantity be not much greater than they can devour, they 
will, as in the case of the Beech nuts, leave you not a 
single acorn that will grow. The best way is to try them 
in the manner directed in the case of the Beech, to which 
the reader will now please to refer. 

423. Acorns might be sown as soon as picked up, were it 
not for the mice ; but, except in very well guarded situa- 
tions, they would, if sown in the fall, be nearly all devoured 
before the spring ; and even if sown in the spring, in an 
open field, or any unguarded spot; any spot where the mice 
would find near and convenient shelter, as in a bottom of 
a hedge, or in rough grass, they would generally leave but 
few of the acorns untouched. If, therefore, you have a 
mind to succeed in the raising of Oak plants, you should 
make your beds in a piece of ground, which has no such 
shelter near it. 

424. The spot having been chosen judiciously, the next 
thing is to prepare the ground well, and then to lay it out 



The Oak. 



into beds, in the manner directed for the Ash in paragraphs 
109 and 110. The beds being prepared, you begin the 
sowing; but 1 must first speak of the manner in which the 
acorns are to be preserved until the time of sowing. When 
you have picked tliem up, and have ascertained that they 
are good and sound, you first make them perfectly dry in 
the sun. When that is done, mix them with very dry sand, 
three bushels of sand to one bushel of acorns; put them 
into barrels or boxes, or into something which will keep 
them pretty much from the air, and, at the same time, quite 
dry, and there let them remain until the middle of March, 
which is the proper time for sowing. 

425. Returning now to the act of sowing, you take the 
sand, acorns, and all together, scatter them over the beds in 
such manner, that they lie at about two inches apart. Then 
pat them down into the ground with the back of the spade, 
and cover them with earth taken out of the alleys, so that 
the acorns have about an inch and a half of depth of earth 
lying upon them. The earth should be broken very fine, 
because, if it be in lumps or clods, the shoot from the 
acorn, on which a clod lies, runs along horizontally under 
the clod, finds its way up, when it gets to the outside of the 
clod, and continuing to grow in this shape, wiW give you 
a plant with a crooked root, which will never become 
straight, and which you will find very injurious. 

426. The plants will conie up in the month of May, when 
they must be kept clear from weeds. The ground ought to 
be stirred between them two or three times in the summer, 
when the weather is dry, and especially after a heavy rain^ 
This management will cause them to be two inches higher 
in the month of October, than they would be if suffered to 
remain without any stirring of the ground. In the month 



The Oak. 



of November they should be put into a nursery, in rows at 
eighteen inches apart, and at about eight inches apart in 
the row, the work being done in the same manner as 
directed for the Ash, in paragraph 120, 121, and 122. But 
very great care must be taken, with regard to the roots. 
The Oak sends down a tap-root, hke the Hickory, but not 
so long. Tiiis tap-root has a few feeble fibres hanging to 
the sides of it. It is next to impossible to jjut this root at 
full length, straight down into the ground ; and if you 
were to do it, it would be of no use, for the fine point of 
the root would be sure to die. You must, therefore, cut 
off this tap-root with a sloping cut by a sharp knife, so as 
so make the root six inches in length, from the point, where> 
before its removal, it touched the surface of the ground. A 
new tap-root will come, in somewhat the same way that a 
new shoot will come from the cutting down of a young tree 5 
but side-shoots will also come out of the root which you 
will put into the ground ; and these will make the tree 
more fit for removal into plantations. 

427. lu this nursery the trees ought to stand for two 
years, or perhaps for three ; because the Oak requires more 
time than trees in general to regain its roots. You will, as 
in the case of the Ash and all other trees, sort or size the 
plants before you put them into the nursery; and the 
largest size may be fit for plantations a year sooner, or per- 
haps two years sooner, than those of the smallest size. 

428. While standing in the nursery, the side-shoots should 
be pruned off, in such manner as to keep the plants from 
getting too large a head ; for that large head prevents the 
stem from becoming stout; and it is stoutness in the stem 
that is wanted. As to the shape which the young trees take, 
that is not of much consequence; for, after being planted 



The Oak. 



out into plantations, they ought to be cut down to the 
ground, as will be seen by-and-by. 

429. * The next operation is to remove the trees to the 
spot where they are destined finally to stand ; and here we 
have to speak of the soil proper for Oaks. There are some 
of the American Oaks that seem to prefer a soil with a 
dry, gravelly, sandy, or stony bottom; buf . our English 
Oaks delight in the sourest of clay, yellow clay, blue clay, 
or any clay that is constantly wet and sour. The young 
plants, however, want anothor sort of soil to strike into at 
first; and their roots stand in need of that fine earth, which 
is not to be obtained amongst clays. Even when they are 
put out into plantations, there should be some fine broken 
mould for them to strike off into. The ground, though 
a clay, should be trenched, after the manner described in 
paragraphs 18, 19, 20, and 21 ; particularly as described in 
paragraph 21, which gives directions for the deep moving of 
the ground, but still for the keeping of the top soil at top. 

430. The ground being ready for planting, the trees 
should be taken up oiit of the nursery with the greatest 
care, the roots pruned, after the manner described in para- 
graphs 72 and 73, and the plants put in, in the manner de- 
scribed in paragraph 7^. Before they be planted they may 
be cut ofi*, not so closely as is represented in figure 2, oppo- 
site paragraph 74; but the head ought to be shortened, 
and the side-shoots shortened also, in order to prevent the 
young trees from being loosened in the ground by the wind, 
before they have taken root. 

431. In this state, the ground being kept clear from 
w^eeds, the Oak should stand two years before it be cut 
down; because, as was observed before, it is longer in 



The Oak. 



taking good firm root, than any other deciduous tree, the 
Hickory excepted. At tlie end of two years, the trees will 
be but scrubby looking things, but they will be fast in the 
ground, of which their roots will have got good hold, and 
their stems will have increased in stoutness. Now, there- 
fore, the ground having been kept perfectly clear of weeds, 
they ought to be cut down, with a sharp knife, nearly close 
to the ground. 

432. This will cause new shoots to come up from them, 
which will go up straight; and you must be careful to take 
off, from each stem, all the shoots but one, leaving that one, 
which of course will be the strongest, to go up and become 
the trunk of the tree. The next year, this shoot will send 
out side-shoots, which must not be taken off until they have 
had a year's growth. Then the lower ones should be taken 
off, by means of a sharp knife and a close cut 5 and thus, 
every year, as the top of the tree rises higher and higher, 
the lowest of the side-shoots should be taken off, until you 
get your stem or trunk clear and straight to the length that 
you desire to have it. It is not always desirable to have a 
long trunk, and a small head in proportion, of course. The 
bark forms a great part of the value of the Oak ; and it fre- 
quently happens, that an ugly-looking tree, with a great 
number of limbs, is more valuable than a handsome, and 
even a larger tree with few limbs. Besides, a straight 
trunk furnishes none of those hiees, which are so valuable 
in the making of ships, and frequently in the making of 
houses. In hedge-rows, therefore, where there is plenty of 
room, there seems to be no good reason for endeavouring 
to obtain a trunk of great length; and, of course, the 
pruning there ought to be accordingly ; but if trees be to 
stand in a wood, they ought to be pruned so as to give room 
for their growing to a considerable height. 



The Oak, 

433. Now, as to the distances , at which Oaks ought to be 
planted, much must depend on the object which the planter 
has in view. Generally speaking, the trees cannot come to 
any thing worthy of the name of timber, unless they stand at 
from twenty to thirty feet distance from each other; for, at this 
distance their heads will all meet at the end of about thirty 
years. But, what is to be done with the rest of the ground 
in the mean while ? for, it would be very unprofitable work 
to employ an acre of ground for thirty years in the raising 
of about eighty trees, which would not probably be worth 
more than three or four pounds a-piece. To plant Oaks 
after the manner directed for Ash and some other trees, 
and to keep thinning out until you got to the eighty to an 
acre, would, it appears to me, be nearly as unprofitable a 
thing as could be done ; for, though from the stools of the 
trees cut down, there would come a coppice, an Oak 
coppice is absolutely good for nothing but fuel. It makes 
neither hoops nor hurdles; and even the young trees that 
would be taken out, when they attain the Iieight proper for 
poles, would be good for nothing in that capacity. The 
young trees, Avhen taken out at a larger size, would be 
good for little, seeing that they are almost all sap, which 
has no strength and which is rotten a year or two after it is 
cut down. Their chief value would be in the bark of the 
trunks, and this would not amount to much. 

434. Therefore, if I had to make a plantation of Oaks, I 
would put them in rows, twenty-five feet apart, and twenty- 
five feet apart in the row, placing the plants of one rowoppo- 
site the middle of the intervals of the other row. Then I would 
have four rows of Hazel, at five feet apart, and at five feet 
apart in the row, between every two rows of Oaks, and 
four Hazel plants between every two Oaks in the row 
itself. The Hazel would rather, perhaps, outgrow the 



The Oak. 



Oaks ; but it would shelter them at the same time ; 
and where the Hazel interfered too much with the Oaks, 
it might be cut away with the hook. By the time that 
the Hazel coppices were fit to cut for the first time^ the 
Oaks would have obtained a considerable height; perhaps 
eight or ten feet. This would give them the mastership 
of the HAZEL ; and, after the second cutting of the 
Hazel, there would begin to be an Oak wood, with a 
Hazel coppice beneath ; and in the mean while the cop- 
pice would have produced very nearly as much as it would 
have produced, if there had been no Oaks growing on it. 
By the time that four cuttings of the Hazel would have 
taken place, the coppice would be completely subdued by 
the Oaks. It would produce no more hoops or hurdles ; 
but then the Oaks would be ready to afford a profit. 

435. I have heard, of the planting of Scotch Firs as nurses 
to the Oaks, and I saw an instance of this upon a small 
scale in a plantation in the New Forest ; but, the Firs grow 
a great deal too fast for the Oaks ; and though they shelter 
them, they draw them up into too slender a size at the 
same time. It is a sort of shelter, which is too much for 
the Oaks ; and, while the Firs do not produce a crop equal 
in value to the tenth part of a HAZEL coppice, they cannot, 
when once cut down, be renewed. They draw away the 
goodness of the ground, as long as they exist, more than 
the Hazel ; and in short, in every point of view, they are, 
as nurses to Oaks, inferior to the other. 

436. The other way of raising Oak plantations is by sow^ 
ing the seeds in ground previously well ploughed or digged; 
or indeed trenched, which is still a great deal better. 
Drills are made by a drill-plough, or by the hand, and the 
acorns put along the drill and covered over; in this case. 



The Oak. 



if the plants succeed, great numbers must be cut out, or 
grubbed up, and the underwood can be nothing but Oak, 
which, as before observed, can be good for little. I know 
a plantation, or rather a wood, formed in this manner, 
except that the acorns were sown broad cast, instead of 
being sown in drills : this wood is veiy near to the village 
of Botley, on an estate which belonged to the late Mr. 
Clewer of that village. The acorns were sown, as Mr. 
Clewer told me, about sixty years ago. 1 had, for years, 
frequent opportunities of looking at this wood, which is 
situated at the top of the hill, by the side of a lane, leading 
from Durley Mill to Curdridge Common. But, in the fall 
of 1826, I rode up that lane, took particular notice of the 
trees, and could not see one which I thought to be any 
thing near forty feet high, and not one of the size worthy 
of being called Timber, though the land there, and all 
round the neighbourhood, is remarkably good for the 
growing of Oak. If a regular plantation had been made on 
that same land, at the time when these acorns were sowed, 
I am convinced that there would now have been many trees 
Avorth ten pounds a-piece. The truth is, that such a mode 
of raising Oaks is rather slower, than suffering them to 
come up as they can amidst the underwood of the cop- 
pices ; and, the absurd practice can have no other founda- 
tion, than that of an erroneous notion that it is a saving of 
expense. These Oaks of sixty years old are nothing more 
than miserable saplings at this hour. 

437. As to the pruning of Oak trees when they become 
large, this never should be done by cutting a limb of any 
considerable size off close to the tree. If so cut off, the 
bark will generally, in time, cover the cut ; and you will 
frequently see, in large Oak trees, a covering of this sort, 
eight, nine, or twelve inches in diameter ; but though you 



The Oak. 



get a covering of bark over the cut, you leave a piece of 
dead wood beneath that bark, which, when the tree is 
sawed out, discovers itself in the greatly inferior vahie of 
the board or plank ; and, though you disguise the fact to 
common eyes, you cannot disguise it to the eyes of the 
timber-merchant, who is sure to make a note of the cir- 
cumstance in his survey previous to the purchase of the 
tree. When, therefore, you are compelled by some circum- 
stance or other, to take off a live limb of any considerable 
size, the best way is to cut it off at three or four feet from 
the trunk of the tree : if new shoots come out of the stump, 
the trunk will receive no injury. If the stump die, which 
is seldom the case, it will be years in dying, and in all 
probability would never injure the trunk. If there be a 
limb broken off by the wind, leaving a stump with a ragged 
end, cut back to the quick, which may bring out new 
shoots, and thus prevent injury to the trunk. If the limb 
be wholly dead, you must cut it out from the bottom ; and 
if it be a limb of considerable size, the sooner you cut the 
tree down the better ; but, if any part of the limb be alive, 
it will be that part which is nearest to the trunk ; and 
M'hen you have cut it back to the quick, you have done all 
that you can do to prevent the mortal disease reaching 
the trunk of the tree. 

438. With regard to the felling of Oaks, the Oak which 
is cut in winter is much 'more valuable than that which is 
cut in summer; but as Oak wood is Oak wood, and as 
Oak wood and Oak bark will sell for more than the same 
quantity of Oak wood alone, we scarcely hear of such a 
thing as a winter-cut Oak. In order to have both ; in 
order to have the skin as well as the body, and to have the 
body sound too, some persons have barked their Oaks 
standing, and cut down the trees the succeeding winter. 

R 



The Oak. 



This was practised, sometimes, hundreds of years back; 
but, if it had been of any solid utility; if it really had, in 
the end, been attended with profit, the practice would have 
become general ; instead of which, I never saw an instance 
of it in all my life. I have seen small Oak stuff, in the 
hedge-rows in Cornwall and Devonshire, thus skinned alive, 
and there may be here and there a man that applies the 
practice to large trees. But, at any rate, the practice is very 
rare,'and very rare it could not be, if it were unequivocally 
profitable. 

439. It is impossible that any reader, after being enabled 
to make the comparison, should not decide on making Locust 
plantations in preference to plantations of Oak. The 
Locust will grow in any soil except in a mere swamp ; and, 
by looking back at my account of the tedious progress of 
the Oak, he will perceive that the Locust tree, at the end 
of three or four years from the seed, would be higher and 
bigger than the Oak tree at the end of twelve or fourteen 
years from the seed ; and, when to this important consi- 
deration, are added the superiority in the quality of the 
Locust, and its great excellence in the forming of coppices 
or underwood, it is impossible for any man to resist the 
conviction tendered to his mind. 

440. Having now given instructions for the propagation 
and management of the Oak generally; and believing that 
there is no essential difference in the quality of the different 
varieties of our English Oak, I next proceed to give an 
account of the American Oaks, first observing, however, 
that a sort of Oak very common in ornamental plantations 
in England, called the Turkey Oak, is a very fast grower 
and a very beautiful tree, but produces, as I am informed, 
wood greatly inferior to that of our English Oak, The 



The Oak. 



American Oaks are, according to Michaux, twenty-five 
in number; as follows: 1st. White Oak {Qaercus Alba) ; 
2d. Black Oak {Quercus Tinctoria) ; 3d. Red Oak {Querais 
Rubra) ; 4tb. Swamp White Oak {Querais Prims Discolor) ; 
5th. OvERcup White Oak {Quercus Macrocarpa) ; 6th. 
Chesnut White Oak {Quercus Prinus Palustris) ; 7th. 
Scarlet Oak {Quercus Coccinea) ; 8th. Black Jack Oak 
Quercus Ferruginea) ; 9th. Grey Oak {Quercus Ambiguo) ; 
10th. Mossy Cup Oak {Quercus OlivcBformis) ; 11th. Post 
Oak {Quercus Obtusiloba) ; 12th. Over cup Oak {Quercus 
Lyrata) ; 13th. Yellow Oak {Quercus Prinus Jcuminata) ; 
14th. Small Chesnut Oak {Quercus Prinv.s Chine apin) ; 
15th Bertram Oak {Quercus Heteropliylla) ; 16th. Water 
Oak {Quercus Aquatica) ; 17th. Bear Oak {Quercus Canis- 
teri) ; 18th. Barren Scrub Oak {Quercus Catesbm) ; 19th. 
Pin Oak {Quercus Palustris), The foregoing^are the decidu- 
ous Oaks. The Evergreens are, Ist. The Live Oak {Quercus 
Virens) ; 2d. The Cork Oak {Quercus Subea) 3 3d. The 
Willow Oak {Quercus Phellos) ; 4th. Laurel Oak {Quer- 
cus Imbricaria) ; 5th. Upland Willow Oak {Quercus Cine- 
ria) ; 6th. Running Oak {Quercus Pumila), 

441. These Oaks all differ in some degree, and that degree 
pretty striking. The foliage of them all is beautiful, espe- 
cially after it has been taken by the frost in the fall of the 
year. Some of these Oaks are represented as not growing 
much higher than a man's head ; and one of them, not 
above a foot and a half high, when it is covered with acorns 
bending the branches down to the ground. But, I think 
worthy of recommendation, as trees to be planted in Eng- 
land, for the purpose of Timber, none but the White Oak 
and the Black Oak, amongst those of a deciduous cha- 
racter ; and none but the Live Oak amongst those of the 

R 2 



Thk Oak. 



' Evergreens. A collection of the whole of the sorts planted 
on one spot would be a very curious object, and singularly- 
pleasing to the eye ; but, in this work, it is my business to 
speak of the useful only, and therefore 1 shall confine myself 
to the three sorts of Oaks just mentioned. 

442. The White Oak {Quercus Alba) produces some of 
the most valuable timber in the world : it is as strong as 
our Oak, and almost as elastic as the Hickory itself. It is 
made use of in the making of almost all the implements of 
husbandry, in the making of coaches, in the making of 
sledges ; and, in short, in the making of every thing where 
great strength and toughness is sought to be obtained in a 
small bulk. As a proof of its toughness and elasticity, it 
is made use of for many purposes to which we apply whale- 
bone. A piece of White Oak, sawed out of a plank, and 
planed down to the proper size, makes a whip-handle ; and, 
in America, the carters' long whips, which we make of 
w^halebone, covered with leather or tarred thread, are made 
of White Oak. My correspondent in America has sent 
me a dozen of coach- whip handles made of this wood, first 
sawed out of a plank, and then planed or turned to the 
proper dimensions ; and one of these whip-handles, together 
with a Hickory whip-handle, may now be seen at my shop 
at Fleet-street. If I were to give a description of all the 
uses to which this wood is put, I should fill half a volume 
with that matter alone. The tree attains the height of 
seventy or eighty feet, and it frequently rises still higher. 
It is, however, amongst the least curious and beautiful, in 
outward appearance, of the American Oaks. The leaf is 
but small, and the shape and colour not very handsome. 
I have found great difficulty in bringing the acorns of this 
Oak in a sound state to England. The shell of the acorn is 



The Oak. 



tender; the acorn ripens early in the fall, and if vrarm rains 
come in the month of November, which they very fre- 
quently do, the acorns still clinging to the tree, actually 
sprout before they are shaken down by the winds. I have 
not yet succeeded in bringing over any considerable quan- 
tity in really good order ; but I think that, if they were 
beaten off the trees before they were quite v\pe, then dried in 
the sun, and packed in very dry sand, they would come to 
hand perfectly safe and sound. The soil in which the White 
Oak delights is precisely that in which our English Oak 
flourishes best. 

443. The Black Oak {Quercus Tinctoria). This Oak is 
adorned with a very beautiful leaf ; very large, most 
curiously formed, of a fine green during the summer, then 
purple for a month, and then nearly scarlet for another 
month. This Oak flourishes in the poorest of soils, or, to 
make use of the words of Michaux, " where the soil is 
lean, gravelly, and uneven and yet it frequently attains 
the height of ninety feet, with a trunk four or five feet in 
diameter, 

444. The wood is reddish, with empty pores ; but it is, 
however, very often used for purposes for which the WnrrE 
Oak is used, when the latter cannot be easily obtained. 
The hark of this Oak is of great value, and many tons of it 
are imported into England annually from America. From 
parts of the bark of this tree is obtained the Quercitron, of 
which great use is made in dying wool, silk, and paper- 
hangings. According to several authors who have written 
on this subject, and among others, Doctou Bancroft, to 
whom, says Michaux, "we are indebted for this discovery, 
*^ one part of Quercitron yields as much colouring matter as 
*^ eight or ten parts of woad." 



The Oak. 

445. The wood is inferior in quality to that of our Oak ; 
but its great height and size, the rapidity of its growth in 
the coldest of climates and the poorest of soils, and, above 
all, the value of its bark in dying, recommend it strongly 
to the notice of English planters. I should suppose that a 
wood of this Oak would come to be fit to bark in England 
in a very few years after the sowing of the acorns ; and 
these acorns have a very thick shelly preserve well, and 
come from America in excellent condition. I have had the 
plants two feet high, and many of them more than that, in 
the month of October, after sowing them in the spring of 
the same year. 

446. The Live Oak {Qiiercus Vivens), Of all the Oaks, 
however, this is the one of the most value. It is evergreen, 
has smooth oblong leaves, of a deep green upon the upper 
side, and whitish on the under side. This tree grows well 
in England, and ripens its seed in England ; there are 
several trees of it in the King's gardens at Kew, and I have 
seen acorns upon them in a very perfect state. The wood 
is as durable as that of the Locust ; but it is a great deal 
heavier than that or any other wood that I ever saw. It 
does not afford large timber ; but is extraordinarily prolific 
in those knees which are so very useful in the building of 
ships. I do not find that it ever grows in America to a 
much greater height or size than it reaches here. Michaux 
tells us that it flourishes best near the sea, and is proof 
against all storms and blasts. He frequently saw it upon 
the sea-beach, or half buried in the movable sands upon 
the downs, where it had preserved its freshness and vigour, 
though exposed during a long lapse of time to the fiu'y of 
the winter winds and to the ardour of the summer sun. 
This tree naturally spreads its head somewhat in the form 
of a good stout, lofty apple-tree ; this circumstance causes 



The Oak. 



it to produce such a quantity of knees. The American 
ships, when for sale, are said to be built of Live Oak and 
Red Cedar. Ninety -nine times out of a hundred such 
sayings are false ; but the assertion proves beyond all doubt 
the great celebrity of the wood. Michaux tells us that it 
is sought after with most destructive eagerness, and that 
he considers its disappearance from the United States,within 
fifty years, as nearly certain. 

447. I trust that it will make its appearance in England 
in proportion as it disappears in the United States ; for, 
besides the utility of it, besides the great interest the 
country has in its cultivation here, it is a large and beautiful 
evergreen, not liable to be broken by the winds, every twig 
being as tough as a bit of rope ,• never flinching at the 
frost and snow, and affording the completest of shelters to 
gardens and houses. 

• 

448. With regard to the mode of propagating this famous 
tree, it can only be done from the acorns. I raised some 
from the acorns last year, but they were very few in 
number. One gentleman had them all; and perhaps he has 
more trees of the Live Oak than all the rest of the people 
of England put together, seeing that I think he has about 
two thousand. The acorns are sowed in the same manner 
as directed for the sowing of the acorns of the common 
Oak ; they attain the height of from five to seven inches 
the first summer, and then they ought to be removed into 
a nursery, in the manner directed for the Red Cedar. But 
they need not stand two years in the seed-bed, like the 
Red Cedar. They must be taken out of the seed-bed with 
the greatest care ; but, as to the removing of these trees, 
turn back to, and read with great attention, paragraph 215. 
The Live Oak ought to stand two years in the nursery, for 



The Oak. 

it will not make much of a shoot the first year ; and then 
it ought to be planted out where it is to stand ; for if 
planted out at a greater age, it will certainly he exposed 
to the risk of not taking root until the top of the plant be 
injured. 

449. As to the preparation of the ground for the final 
plantation, it ought to be after the best possible manner ; 
and the planting ought to be performed with extraordinary 
care, the wind and sun being kept from the roots as com- 
pletely as possible; and the planting ought to take place 
early in the fall if it be convenient, or else in April, and the 
roots ought to be grouted if the weather be warm. 

450. The Live Oak is never to be cut down, after the 
manner of deciduous trees. It must remain entire, for, if 
cut down, I much question if it would thi'ow up new shoots. 
This circumstance points o\it the necessity of putting it 
into plantations when still very small ; for, if large, the 
removal would prevent the root from being able to supply 
sap sufficiently for the first year. This does not so much 
signify in deciduous trees, because, by cutting down, you 
get a new plant when the root is arrived at a state sufficient 
to push it up and maintain it in vigour ; but, as you cannot 
cut down this Evergreen Oak, you must be careful that it 
is never deprived of its due share of sap. 

451. A plantation of Live Oaks would be a most beautiful 
thing, and valuable beyond all calculation. A knee, about 
the size and form of one's leg and thigh, when one is sitting 
in a chair with the heel at about a foot and a half from the 
chair; I mean the leg and thigh of a good stout man, 
however; such a knee would be equal in strength, and 
indeed a great deal stronger, and a great deal less liable 



The Oak. 



to breaks than a knee of the same bulk, made even of 
Swedish iron, not to think of the rubbishy stuff, half sand 
and half ore, of which cast-iron things are composed. But 
the Live Oak is a spreading- tree, though low of stature 
compared with Elms and with other Oaks : it spreads 
about its head to a very considerable extent, and you do 
not want it with a straight and long trunk ; you want it for 
the knees, and for other purposes where short lengths are 
sufficient ; and therefore it ought to have room, and ought, 
indeed, to be planted in distances of twenty-five feet, in the 
same manner as 1 have suggested the propriety of making 
a plantation with the Common O.vk. And here 1 beg to 
refer the reader to what I said, a little way back, upon that 
subject. 

452. If the coppice were to consist of Birch, instead of 
Hazel, it might in this case be as well ; for the Birch 
would push up faster than the Hazel, and would not throw 
out such a very great number of shoots from each stem. If 
the plantation be for ornament as well as for use, it is likely 
that the coppice would not be thought of ; and then all 
that would be required would be an effectual fence, and 
constantly clean land. After the plants attain the height of 
seven or eight feet, a pruning of the lower side-shoots might 
take place, and this pruning might be continued until you 
had got a clear trunk from twelve to twenty feet high : then 
the head ought to be left to form itself into limbs, and those 
limbs to form themselves into knees, 

453. The bark of the Live Oak is never heard of in 
tanning, and therefore the tree is always cut when the sap 
is down. The bark seems to be, indeed, nearly as hard 
as the wood itself for you frequently see it on the edges 



The Persimon. 

of planks and slabs at the end of twenty years after they 
come from the saw-pits. I never saw, that I know of, a 
broken or dead limb in a Live Oak tree. The twigs are 
so tough, and the limbs have so many minor limbs coming 
out of them, and they so firmly brace and support each 
other, that the wind seems never to have the smallest effect 
upon this tree ; to cause an extensive plantation of which 
to be made in England would merit the title of Duke 
ten thousand times more than ten thousand battles of 
Waterloo. 



THS rERSXIMEOSr. 

In Latin, Diospiros ; in French, Plaqueminier, 

454. The botanical characters are : — It has hermaphrodite and female 
flowers on the same plant, and male flowers on separate plants ; the herm- 
aphrodite flowers have a lare^e obtuse permanent empalement of one leaf, 
which is divided into four parts ; the flower has one petal which is shaped 
like a pitcher, and cut at the brim into four segments, which spread open ; 
it has eight short bristly stamina firmly joined to the empalement, termi- 
nated by oblong summits which have no farina. In the centre is situated a 
roundish germen, supporting a single quadrified style, crowned by an obtuse 
bifid stigma ; the germen afterwards becomes a large globular berry, with 
many cells, each including one oblong, compressed hard seed. The male 
flowers have a one-leaved empalement, cut into small acute segments ; the 
petal is thick and four-cornered, cut into four obtuse segments, which turn 
backward ; they have eight short stamina, terminated by Ion J, acute, twin 
summits, but have no germen. 

455. This tree, which is found in almost all parts of the 
United States, does not rise to a great height; but it some- 
times reaches that of sixty feet, with a diameter of eighteen 
or twenty inches ; and I am mistaken, if I have not seen it 



The Persimon. 



several times much higher and bigger. The leaves are from 
four to six inches long, of a beautiful green above, and of a 
whitish blue on the underside. It bears a fruit, a sort of 
plum about the size of our largest cherries, and bears it in 
prodigious quantities. The fruit is of a pale red, in the 
fall of the year, and when the frost has nipped it, it fre- 
quently is eaten. 

456. The wood of this tree is very hard, strong and elastic. 
MicHAux says that it is used at Baltimore, in the making 
of large screws, and by tinmen for making their mallets. 
It is employed to make the large wedges, which assist iron 
wedges in the splitting of the trunks of trees ; for the 
making of the shafts of chaises it stands before every other 
sort of wood except the lance-wood of the West Indies. 
So that, taking ornament and use together, this is a tree 
very well worthy of our attention ; and as to the propaga- 
tion of it, nothing can be more easy. 

457. The seed is easily obtained from almost any part of 
the United States. Several seeds are contained in each of 
the little sort of plums above described. They are as hard 
as. a bit of pewter, and pliable like a little bit of pewter. 
They ought to be sowed in the month of March or April, 
in just the same manner as directed for the Ash. When 
scattered on the seed-bed, which they may be very thickly, 
they ought to be pressed down by the back of the spade to 
settle them firmly in the ground, and then covered with 
earth taken out of the alleys^ which earth ought to lie on 
the beds a little more than an inch deep, and ought to be 
made very fine in order to suffer the plants freely to come 
up, which they will do very boldly, just in the manner of 
a kidney-bean, about the middle of the month of May. 



The Per SIMON. 



458. It is a very bold plant ; but, the beds ought never- 
theless to be kept perfectly clean from weeds. If this be 
done, and if the ground be good, they will be from six to 
eight inches high in the month of October. In November, 
or in the succeeding month of March, they ought to go into 
the nursery, in the manner described in the case of the 
Ash, and at the same distances ; but, though the root is 
very bushy, and has nothing of sap belonging to it, the 
plants must be removed with great care, to guard against 
the influence of sun or wind ; because, this is a hard-wooded 
plant ; and all such plants, except the Locust, as far as 
I know, require particular care in transplanting. They 
might stand two years in the nursery, unless you perceived 
them to make good shoots the first year 5 for unless you 
see a shoot made by the plant, you may be assured that the 
root has not done much in the way of shooting. 

459. When they have stood two years at most in the 
nursery, they ought to go to the spot Where they are finally 
to stand. Most likely few persons would ever think of 
Persimons except for clumps, for lofty shrubberies, or for 
independent trees. If put into clumps, they might stand 
at about six feet apart at first, and be thinned out when 
their want of sufficient room required it. If any one, ever 
should think of making a little wood of Persimons, they 
might be planted in rows of ten feet apart, the plants at 
ten feet apart in the row, and those in the one row 
standing opposite the middle of the intervals of the other 
row. There then would come a row of Hazel or of 
Birch at five feet apart between each two rows of the Per- 
simons, and one plant of Hazel or of Birch between 
each two Parsimons, in the Persimon rows : and thus, a 
coppice would be going on, while the trees were growing 



The Plane. 



in height, in the same manner as has been suggested in the 
case of the Oak. As the trees advance in height, their 
lower side-shoots should be taken off, in such manner, as to 
secure a clear stem and a straight one, if possible, of 
eighteen or twenty feet long. That is long enough. The 
heads of the trees would then get pretty close together ; 
there would be beauty above and profit beneath ; beauty in 
the foliage and profit in the trunk. 

460. The proper season of cutting down the trees is, of 
course; the winter; and of the qualities and uses of the wood, 
I have already spoken. I do not say that I recommend any 
one to make a plantation of Persimons ; but, it might be 
done upon a small scale at a very little expense ; and if one 
were plantuig a coppice of Birch or of Hazel, it might in 
fact be done at hardly any expense at all. 



THIS riiAHE. 

In Latin, Platanus ; in French, Platane. 

461. The botanical characters are : — It has male and female flowers grow-. 
ing separately on the same tree. The flowers are collected in a round bell ; 
they have no petals but very small empalements, which have oblong 
coloured stamina, terminated by four-cornered summits. The female 
flowers have scaly empalements and several small concave petals, with several 
awl-shaped germen sitting upon the styles crowned by curved stigmas ; these 
are collected in large balls. The germen turns afterwards to a roundish seed 
sitting upon the bristly style and surrounded with downy hair. 

462. This is one of the trees in knowledge with regard 
to the propagation of which I pride myself ; and the reader 
will see that it is not without reason, when he comes to that 
part of this article, in which I am to speak of the experi- 
ment made last summer in the raising of Planes. 



The Plane. 



423. There are two distinct species of Planes : tlie 
Oriental Plane and the Occidental Plane; one belongs to 
Asia and the other to America. We have long had them 
both in England ; sometimes very fine ; but always less 
fine than they would have been, had they been raised from 
the seed. The Oriental Plane is that which sheds its 
hark annually or biennially. The bark peels off, by piece- 
meal, and new bark comes in its stead. The Occidental 
Plane does not change its bark in this manner. The trunk 
of the former tree is of a grey colour; that of the latter is 
rather of a greenish red. The leaves of the Occidental 
Plane are larger than those of the Oriental Plane ; and 
it grows to a greater height and in a more erect manner: 
both are noble trees ; and if they were raised from seed, 
instead of being raised from Layers, they would be full as 
large and lofty as they are in their native countries. Mil- 
ler relates that he has read of an Oriental Plane " which 
" was growing at a villa of the Emperor Caligula; the 
" trunk of which was so large, as, when hollowed, to make 

a room therein, to entertain ten or twelve persons at a 
" repast, and for their servants to wait upon them." Miller 
speaks of another of these Oriental Planes, which was of 
so great a magnitude, that Xerxes made his army 
" (which consisted of seventeen hundred thousand men) 
" halt for some days to admire the beauty and tallness of 
" this tree, which he called his mistress, his minion, his 
" goddess; and, when he was obliged to part with it, he 
" caused a figure of it to be stamped on a gold medal, 
" which he continually wore about his neck.** Well would 
it be for some people, for some poor oppressed and miserable 
millions, if their Sovereigns delighted in mistresses, minions 
and goddesses of a character so inoffensive, and so little; 
calculated to produce taxation and beggary. This tall and 
lovely goddess never meddled, I warrant her, in affairs. 



Thk Plane. 



which ought to be left wholly to men ; never broke up 
councils, or frustrated political arrangements and plans 5 
never squandered away a wretched people's earnings, either 
in] decorating lierself or creating fortunes for her minions. 
Happy subjects of Xerxes ! and success, say I, to those 
Sovereigns who are fond of trees, and who prefer them to 
goddesses made of corrupt flesh and blood, whether the 
goddesses be fat or lean. 

464. The Occidental Plane does, perhaps, surpass in 
height and size that of the East. In America its common 
name is the Button wood, from the form of the ball con- 
taining its seed, a particular description of which I shall 
give by-and-by. To hear this vulgar, pitiful name, one 
would imagine that the tree must be but a pitiful tree ; 
yet,, it is the largest tree in the world 5 and as will 
by-and-by be seen, its seed is very little bigger than that of 
the lettuce plant. Miller speaks of an Occidental Plane 
that had been known in America, to be thirty-six feet round; 
MxcHAUX speaks of one, which was measured by himself 
and his travelling companion, and which they found on 
the right bank of the Ohio, thirty-six miles from Marietta, 
which measured, at four feet from the ground, forty-seven 
feet in circumference ; and, of course, the diameter of which 
was fifteen feet and eight inches. If this tree had been 
hollowed out, and a round table put in the centre of it, 
a greater company than that of Caligula might have 
feasted in this vegetable dining-room. The elder Michaux 
measured another tree, which was forty feet four inches 
round at five feet from the ground ; which latter tree be- 
came renowned from General Washington having mea- 
sured it twenty years before. Michaux says that this tree 
is seen in the mixed woods with a trunk several feet in 
diameter at the height of sixty or seventy feet ; and that it 



The Planr. 



begins to ramify near the summits of the general mass of 
trees. It is very well known^ that the families of the 
Squatters, or first settlers, frequently scoop out the trunks 
of these trees; and live in them as houses for years together. 
These surprisingly large tnmks are sometimes fashioned 
into Canoes, and Michaux speaks of one of these, which 
was made to sail on the river Wabash, that was sixty-Jive 
feet long, and that would, of course, carry more than a 
hundred persons. 

465. This is quite enough as to the size the tree is capable 
of attaining. The wood is used for all those purposes that 
the soft woods are generally applied to. It is frequently 
used, in America, in the making of bedsteads, and some- 
times in the interior of the building of houses. It is used 
universally as butchers' blocks, and for all similar purposes, 
it being less inclined to split or chip away than blocks 
made of any other kind of wood. It is also used for blocks 
on board of ship ; for, though it is rather too light, it 
has the excellent quality of not being prone to split or 
crack. 

466. In England it will hardly ever be planted in woods 
merely for the sake of the timber ; but for avenues, for 
clumps, for independent trees, in grounds of large space, it is 
one of the finest trees in the world. It is even more rich and 
shady in foliage than the Oriental Plane, and does not, 
like that, shed part of its leaves in the summer. It is pre- 
ferable beyond all measure to Elms; even its timber is 
better; it grows beyond measure faster; and its leaves 
retain their freshness during the whole of the summer, and 
it is never infested, as the Elm very frequently is, by those 
caterpillars which make it an object of ugliness instead of 
an object of beauty. 



The Plane, 



467. Having now given a description of the Plane, I 
next proceed to give instructions as to the manner of rais- 
ing it. It is curious that Miller, while he says that 
he has raised Planes from the seed, seems to place no 
reliance upon that method, but resorts to the Cuttings and 
the Layers and thus it is, that they are raised, by all our 
gardeners and nurserymen; and thus it is, that we have no 
Plaiie trees in England, but many branches of trees. We 
scarcely ever see them going up with a clear straight trunk, 
to any considerable distance. The trunk is in fact a great 
limb of a tree, and it throws out branches after the manner 
of a limb; and never goes on rising straight upwards until 
it gets to a great height, and then begins to ramify. I have 
seen Planes in America a great deal more than a hun- 
dred feet high, straight as gun-sticks, and with heads be- 
ginning to spread sixty or seventy feet from the ground. 
The reason is, that these trees come from the seed ; but 
I am sure that the gardeners and nurserymen in England, 
who might raise them so much cheaper from seed than in 
any other way, do not know how to do it, or they never 
would resort to the tardy and expensive mode of raising 
them by cuttings or layers. 

468. I imported enough of the seed of the Occidental 
Plane to furnish all England with trees; I sowed some 
every year, from 1822 to 1826 inclusive ; and when I ought 
to have had hundreds of thousands every year, I got only a 
very few hundreds of plants. Last spring, the spring of 
1827, I was resolved to take particular pains about the 
matter. I sold some of the seeds in my boxes of seeds ; 
and, in a catalogue which accompanied the boxes, I directed 
the seeds to be sown upon sifted mould, and then to be 
covered with sifted mould only about an inch deep. This 
I did myself, sowing many beds in this way ; and, to my 

s 



The Plane. 

great mortification, I found that 1 had got, after all, only 

about Jive or six hundred plants! I gently moved the top of 
the ground in many places, saw that the seeds had struck, 
covered over the places again, making sure that, as there 
was a root already come, there would also come a plant. 
I waited, however, in vain; for though the leaves of the 
plants actually came out of the seed under the ground, only 
the very few that I have mentioned ever made their appear- 
ance above ground. 

469, I here request the reader to turn back to the account 
of my experiments with regard to the Birch seed, which 
account the reader will find in paragraphs 158, 159, 160 
and 161. Accident led me to perceive, or I think I may 
call it attentive observation, that Birch trees were to be 
obtained by sowing the seeds upon the ground. Why then, 
thought I, may it not be the same with regard to the seeds 
of the Plane ? The form and substance of the seed seemed 
to forbid the hope ; but, nevertheless. Planes must come 
from the seeds dropped on the ground in America, and 
I resolved to try the thing at any rate. 

470. The SEED of the Plane comes in a round ball, as 
nearly as possible an inch in diameter, through the centre. 
The seed itself is in the form of a round tiail without a head, 
tapering from the hammer end to the point ; it is about 
two thirds of an inch long; the point of it has a parcel of 
stuff like cotton wool attached to it, and this is packed 
round a little hard ball in the centre of the large ball. The 
seeds are so formed that the points of all of them go into 
and are attached to a part of this wool, while their big 
ends, pressed close together, form the circumference of 
the ball. When the ball is ripe and dry, it tumbles to 
pieces, or, falling from the tree, each seed finds a wing 



The Plane, 



in its portion of wool, and is thus scattered abroad by the 
winds, 

471. The seed, as I have called it above, is, however, 
only the coat of the seed. It is a little brown thing, in the 
shape of such nail as 1 have described before. There is 
nothing of vegetation that appears in it; but, if carefully 
opened, after having been for a while steeped in warm 
water, you can discover a little point of white pith; but 
even then, after the soaking, not exceeding in bulk the point 
of a common pin; beyond all measure smaller than the pith 
of a Lettuce seed. From this comes, from this mere atom 
comes, such immense trees ! This is a more wonderful 
thing than all the other wonders of the vegetable creation. 

472. Now, the reader will perceive, that this atom of pith 
is not of sufficient strength to force up out of the ground the 
thick and tough covering which nature has put around it. 
The manner of growing in seeds is, the root starts first, 
and, when it has acquired sufficient strength, it forces up 
the head. The root of the Plane comes out at the point 
of the nail, as I have called it; but this root has not suffi- 
cient strength to force up, through any thing of a covering 
of ground, so comparatively large and long a thing as the 
shank and butt of the nail. When covered with ground, 
therefore, the root starts, the leaves come out under the 
ground, but without the means of being forced up out of 
the ground ; and this is, too, the case of the Birch and of 
many other seeds. 

473. I, therefore, as the result of these reflections and 
observations, went to work, and proceeded thus : I broke 
the Plane balls to pieces, rubbed them well with the hand 
to separate the wool from the seeds ; sifted out the seeds as 

s 2 



The Plane. 



you would grain from chaff ; put the seeds soaking in luke- 
warm water for eight-and-forty hours ; took the seeds out 
of the water^ and mixed them with finely-sifted fresh earth, 
ten gallons of earth to one gallon of seeds ; put the mixture 
upon a smooth place upon the bare ground ; turned and 
re-mixed the heap every day, for four or five days, keeping 
it covered with a mat whenever the turning and mixing 
was not going on ; and, as soon as I perceived here and 
there a root beginning to appear, I sowed the seeds upon 
a bed of sifted earth, mixed with the sifted mould just as 
they came out of the heap. 

474. There the seeds lay then, pretty nearly as thick as 
they could well lay, on the top of the ground. In this state 
1 watered them gently every evening with a fine-rosed 
watering pot, kept them securely shaded from the sun by 
mats, by the means of frames or hoops to keep the mats 
from touching the ground, and took tiie mats off every 
evening at about an hour after sun-set. In about a week, 
I saw the roots coming out at the point of the nail, and 
going down into the ground. Soon afterwards, the nails, ^ 
as I call them, began to raise their heads. In a few days 
they were all standing bolt upright, and in a few days more, 
the rusty looking coat was shuffled off, and out came the 
seed leaves, resembling, as nearly as possible, the seed leaves 
of the Red Beet-root, or those of the Mangel Wurzel. 

475. After this, I shaded the plants less and less, till they 
became hardy enough to be exposed during the whole of 
the day. Instead of being done in April, this work was not 
done until the month of July ; and therefore the plants were 
a mere nothing in point of size in the month of October; 
and were hardly in a condition to resist the frost without 
feome degree of covering. 1 am now about to plant them 



The Plane. 

out, and tliey ^vill, I dare say, be very fine plants by tbe 
next fall. In this manner they will stand in the seed-bed, 
at less than an inch apart. A small space will give you 
thousands and thousands of plants, at the expense of a very 
, few shillings. 

476. As to the treatment of the plants after the seed-bed, 
they should be put into a niu'sery in the manner directed 
for the Ash. They have excellent roots, move without 
risk, strike off at once ; and if, by early frosts or some other 
accident, the leading shoot be injured, you have only to cut 
off the injured part, down to the first live bud you come to : 
another leader comes immediately ; the little crook that is 
made by the change of the leader is completely grown out 
the first year, and the tree grows up as straight as a rush. 
These trees might stand one year or even two in the 
nursery, before being finally planted out ; but they should 
not stand longer, if you mean to have straight and beautiful 
trees. Whether planted in clumps or in single trees, there 
must be an effectual fence extending in such a way as to be 
at five feet distance from the trunk of the tree in every di- 
rection. It is little short of a mark of idiocy to plant trees, 
and especially trees for ornament, and then to turn cattle in 
to eat them ! Yet, how often is this done ! The ground 
ought to be kept clean until the tree attains a good height. 
If you plant large trees, they must and they will be leaning 
trees. The wind will make them take a leaning posture, 
before the root be sufficiently powerful to cause them to 
stand in an erect attitude. The roots of trees are their 
foundations, their buttresses, their spurs ; and if these do 
not come until after the tree begins to lean on one side, 
they will indeed prevent it from falling, as an old wall is 
prevented from falling by buttresses placed against it; but, 
as these will never make the wall to stand upright, so the 



The Poplar. 



roots of a tree will never restore it to its erect attitiulej if it 
once begin to lean. 

477. The Plane should, like most other deciduous trees, 
be cut down to the ground the year after It is planted out ; 
it will then send up a surprisingly strong shoot 5 and the 
trunk will go on in a manner as straight as a gun-stick. 
As it goes on rising, the lower side-shoots should be taken 
off, always cutting close with a sharp knife, until you have 
got a clear trunk to the length that you desire. 



THIS fOFIaAH. 

In Latin, Populus ; in French, Peuplier. 

478. The Botanical characters are : — The male and female flowers grow 
upon separate trees. The male flowers or katkins have one oblong, loose, 
cylindrical empalement, which is imbricated. Under each scale, which is 
oblong, plain, and cut on the border, is situated a sing'le flower without any 
petal, having a nectarium of one leaf, turbinated at the bottom, and tubulus 
at the top, and eight stamina terminated by large four-cornered summits. 
The female flowers are in katkins, like the male, but have no stamina; they 
have an oval, acute-pointed germen, with scarcely any style, crowned by a 
four-pointed stigma. The germen becomes afterwards an oval capsule, with 
two cells, including many oval seeds having hairy down. 

479. This is a very numerous, and, according to my 
taste, is, for the most part, a very worthless family of trees. 
They all bear a seed in katkins, which come out early in 
the spring, and the seed contained in which is ripe when 
the katkins fall, which is generally late in May, or the be- 
ginning of June. All the sorts may be raised from cuttings. 
A cutting, or truncheon, stuck into the ground, produces 



The PoPLAtu 



the tree; and, in general, a very ugly tree it is; but it 
grows fast, yields a great deal of stuff to make rough 
boards of, outgrows a Fir beyond all comparison, and 
makes good stuff for packing-cases, and other things for 
which pasteboard is a little too weak. 

480. The sorts that we have in England, are the Abele 
Tree {Populus Alba) ; the Aspen {Populus Tremula) ; the 
Black Poplar (Populus Nigra) ; and that well-known 
great, staring, ugly thing, called the Lombardy Poplar, 
which, to all its other amiable qualities, is very apt to fur- 
nish its neighbours with a surplus population of caterpil- 
lar and other abominable insects. The first of these, the 
Abele, is, however, a really fine tree, grows to a great 
size and great height, especially near running water, and 
produces timber, by no means to be despised. The wood 
takes a fine polish, it is close-grained, though light ; and is, 
take it altogether, and considering all its uses, far prefera- 
ble to the wood of the Elm ; but I have never seen it of 
any considerable size, except in rich land, or very near to 
running water. 

481. The largest I ever saw, and the loftiest also, stands 
opposite to a fine farm-house, near the Thames, on the road 
from Hampton to Chertsey Bridge. The leaves of this 
tree are white on the under side, and give the tree a white 
appearance when blown up by the wind. The trunk, also, 
is of a whitish hue, speckled with black. This tree throws 
up abundance of suckers. If standing where the suckers 
are mowed off by the scythe at hay-cutting time, it will 
send up a new crop for the next year. Hence, this fine tree 
is always raised from suckers. Like parent like child, and 
the young trees send out suckers, and infest the whole 
neighbourhood with them, by the time they attain the 



The Poplar. 



height of ten or twenty feet. These suckers are put into 
nurseries wlien they are small, stand there till they are 
large; and then, when planted out, are sure to lean on one 
side. 

482. The Aspen has a little round leaf that is continu- 
ally in motion when there is a breath of wind. The wood 
of this tree is certainly good for as little as any wood can 
well be. It is found in almost all our coppices ; and it con- 
tinues to be found there, because people do not take the 
pains to root it out. I never heard of any man that ever 
thought of raising, or that ever wished to have, an Aspen 
tree. If there should happen to be such a man^ he may be 
gratified at any time, by cutting off a truncheon in Febru- 
ary, of about two or three feet long, and sticking one-half 
of it into the ground. The tree will come from this simple 
operation, and this is a great deal more pains than it is 
Avorth. 

483. The Black Poplar, or, as it is more frequently 
called, the Black Italian Poplar, is a surprising thing 
for quickness of growth. It is almost incredible, the size 
to which a tree of this sort will attain in good ground in 
the course of fifteen or twenty years. I planted some of 
these trees in the plantation mentioned in paragraph 350. 
They were, when planted, of about the same height of the 
rest of the trees ; but, at the end of seven or eight years, 
they were so lofty and so big, that the plantation looked 
like here and there an old tree, with a parcel of little ones 
planted round it. They were twice as big, and half as high 
again, even as the Locusts. Thus situated, they were a 
great dissight to the plantation, and I cut them down, and 
tore up the roots, to put a stop to their breeding of suckers. 
At the same time, I thinned out the Locusts, had the 



The Poplar. 

brush of both cut off and carried away; but the trunks 
were laid down in the plantation, and, from some cause 
which I now do not recollect, they remained there until the 
next winter, when I had them taken away. The men, as 
they brought the trunks out of the plantation, threw them 
down upon the adjoining grass ground, and one of the 
Poplars, pretty nearly as big round as my thigh, at the butt, 
snapped short asunder. I had planted the trees 'm conse- 
quence of the high encomiums passed on this sort of Poplar 
by Mr. Pontky, in his book on " Profitable Planting." The 
snapping asunder of this trunk was quite enough for me. 
I instantly cut down and grubbed up every tree of the kind 
that I had upon my premises. I examined the rest of the 
trunks, and found them all very little better than touch- 
wood. Nevertheless, this is a monstrous producer of boards 
for packing cases, or for any other temporary uses where 
durability is not required. The form of the trunk is spiral, 
and the tree throws out no very large limbs; but it pro- 
duces wood in the trunk faster than any other tree that I 
have ever seen. 

484. This tree throws out suckers, but not so numerously 
as the Abele. It is generally raised by the means of cut- 
tings, about as big as your finger and a yard long, which 
are put into the ground in the month of February to the 
depth of half their length. They will send up shoots the 
first year, only one of the stoutest of which shoots, should be 
left. Thus will come a tree, which ought to be planted out 
in the same manner as directed for the Ash. 

485. As to the Lombardy Poplar, it is so utterly worth- 
less, so ugly, and so filthy, that I cannot bring myself to 
say any thing about it, except that it may be raised by 



The Poplar. 

either truncheons or cuttings, in the manner before pointed 
out. 

486. Of the American Poplars, there are ten sorts : — 
the Carolinian Poplar {Populm Angidata) 5 the Cotton 
Wood {Populus Canadensis) ; the Black Poplar {Popidus 
Hudsonica) the Virginian Poplar {Popidus Molinifera) ; 
the Cotton Tree {Populus Hargentea) ; the Balsam Poplar 
{Popidus Balsamifera), or Tacamahaca Tree; the Heari'- 
leaved Poplar {Populus Candicans). Besides these, there 
are the American White Poplar {Populus Canescens) ; the 
American Aspen {Populus Tremidoides) ; and the x\merican 
Large Aspen {Populus Grandidenia) , 

487. Like the English Poplars, the wood of all these is 
good for very little; and can be very seldom used in a 
country where excellent sorts of timber are so numerous 
and so abundant. Cuttings and truncheons, even if we had a 
mind to raise the trees, could not be brought from America. 
They may be all raised in that manner; and if any body 
has a mind to possess this American collection, the seed 
might be easily brought over. 

488. Now, if it were desirable to have very fine and 
beautiful Poplar trees, why not raise them from the seed ? 
One complaint against the Poplar Trees, is, that they 
drop their katkins in such abundance, that they litter the 
ground all about, and make the neighbouring lawns and 
walks so very unsightly. These katkins are full of little 
oblong seeds covered with a soft down. I never sowed any 
of them ; but, I am sure that the trees may be raised easily 
from the seeds. I do not know that the seed would send 
the plant up, from under ground, because the kernel, in 



The Sassafras. 



proportion to its size, is very much loaded with its wool 
and its shell ; and, therefore, it might act like the kernel of 
the Plane, vegetate under the ground, and never send up a 
plant j but, I am very sure, that the plants may be raised 
from seed, by sowing the seed in the same manner as that 
which I have, on my own experience, recommended to be 
practised in the case of the Plane. 



In Latin Laiirm Sassafras ; in French Sassafras. 

489. The botanical characters are : — It has male and hermaphrodite flow- 
ers on different plants; the male flowers have no empalements; they have 
one petal, which is cut into six seg^ments at the top, and nine stamina which 
are shorter than the petal, standing by threes, terminated by slender sum- 
mits. The hermaphrodite flowers have no empalements ; they have one 
petal, which is slightly cut into six segments at the top. In the bottom is 
situated an oval germen supporting a single style of the same length with the 
petal, crowned by an obtuse stigma, attended by six or eight stamina : there 
are two globular glands, standing upon very short foot stalks fixed to the 
basis of the petal. The germen afterwards becomes an oval berry with one 
cell, enclosing one seed of the same form. 

490. This is called by the botanists a Laurel ; and the 
reader might be apt to suppose it to be an evergreen, which 
it is not. I am writing about trees and underwoods of uti- 
lity, and not of mere ornament; but if there be both com- 
prised in the same tree, it being greatly ornamental, cer- 
tainly does not lessen its utility any more than the beauty of 
a maid servant lessens the utility of the activity, cleanliness, 
skill, civility, and excellent good humour, with which that 
description of persons generally perform their various and 
very necessary functions. The use of the Sassafras is to 



The Sassafras. 



be found in its bark, and particularly in the bark of its roots, 
which has now been in general use all over Europe, amongst 
the practisers of the healing art, for upwards of two hundred 
years. For myself, 1 must say, that I have had no experience 
of its utility; but others have, or think they have, which, in 
such a case, is pretty nearly as good. 

491. Bark, wood, leaf, seed, flower, all have a pretty 
strong, and by no means a disagreeable, odour ; and one 
never would imagine that it was mediciiie, if one did not so 
often hear it talked of as an excellent sudorific. The Ame- 
ricans gather the flowers in the spring, and carry them to 
the great cities, where the overcharged specidators stand 
in need of stomachics, and, for various weighty reasons, 
of something to purify the blood; and, if the Sassafras 
would but purify the morals at the same time, it ought to 
be cultivated liberally in every mercantile and manufac- 
turing town of the mother as well as of the daughter 
country. The farming people, taking compassion on the 
overgo rged citizens, and not, doubtless, from any desire to 
drain their purses while they are purifying their blood, 
gather the flower in the month of May, in Long 
Island for instance, carry them down to New^ York in great 
quantities, and there charge for them only the very mode- 
rate price of four English pence a pint ; when any long 
Yankee, assisted by a little bit of a ladder, would easily 
gather twenty bushels a day ! Yet you see the " Yorkers " 
running to the market with all possible eagerness to obtain 
this means of restoring or preserving their health, never 
imagining that they would stand in no need of Sassafras 
tea, if they would but abstain a little from their breakfasts 
of beef-steaks, and their glasses of grog from morning 
to night. 



The Sassafras. 



492. The farmers, in many places, boil the young shoots 
in water, to which they add some treacle, and which, when 
it has stood some time to ferment, they call " &eer," and 
drink it as such (alternately with their grog) during the 
whole of the summer. Michaux says, that the dried leaves 
and the young branches of the Sassafras contain a muci- 
laginous principle ; and that, " in Louisiana, the leaves are 
" used by the inhabitants to thicken and to give a high 
" relish to their pottage/' 

493. Such are the medical, the culinary, and domestic 
uses of this tree ; but, in this country, it will scarcely ever 
be planted with a view to profit, except for the sake of its 
bark, though its wood is not an inferior one by any means. 
A proof of its being pretty good is, that it is frequently 
used for the making of posts in farm fences ; sometimes 
for joists and rafters ; more frequently still for bedsteads, 
which, on account of its odour, perhaps, are known to be 
never infected with "insects," as Michaux, having con- 
tracted the habit of American delicacy, calls fleas, bugs, 
and lice. But here would arise a difficulty, namely, what 
are to become of the "insects'* if the body happen to take 
them into the bed. An excellent cleanser of the body the 
bedstead might be ; but then the " insects " must be abso- 
lutely compelled to beat a march, and would then distribute 
themselves all over the house. 

494. The bark is the thing for which we must look at 
this tree as an article of profit. Very large quantities of 
it are brought into all the countries of Europe, and to this 
country amongst the rest. Sometimes it is imported in the 
shape of oil or extract ; and there are manufactories in 
America for the purpose of obtaining these from the bark. 



V 



The Sassafras. 

I remember seeing one, in New Jersey, with not less, I am 
sure, tlian five hundred wagon loads of the exhausted bark 
lying in the neighbourhood of the building. Our Custom- 
tariff shows that we import a great deal ; and, if it can be 
produced here, out of our own land, no political economist 
that ever crossed the Tweed shall make me believe that it 
would not be better for us to do this, than to send English 
manufactures, paid for in great part out of the poor-rates, 
to be exchanged for this article in America. 

495. After all, however, with me the great recommen- 
dation is, the singular beauty of the tree. It sometimes, in 
good land, attains the height of forty or fifty feet, but it 
does not grow veiy fast after the first six or seven years 5 
and, therefore, as timber, it is excelled by so many other 
trees, and, as underwood, it being good for nothing, the 
Sassafras cannot be spoken of as a tenant of woods or 
coppices, but, for hedge rows, it would be excellent. It is 
hardy in the extreme ; it will thrive on the most arid soil. 
It is seen in company with that hardiest of trees, the Red 
Cedar ; it sends out suckers like an Elder. When once 
there is a stem of it in a hedge row, you are sure to have 
it there in abundance, until you clearly grub up the 
whole row. 

496. Then, as to the beauty of the tree, I scarcely know 
one that surpasses it. The leaf is, in substance, that of the 
Common Laurel ; but, in colour, more bright and pleasing 
to the eye ; and, as to the shape of the leaf, the leaves 
have various shapes upon the same tree ; some oblong, 
others much broader than long, and having one, two, three, 
or four deep openings in their sides, full half as deep as the 
openings between the fingers of a man's hand. The tree 



The Sassafras. 



comes into bloom very early in the spring, and is covered 
all over with large bunches of yellow flowers, each flower 
rather insignificant in itself, but the whole making a very 
gay show. In the fall of the year, in the month of October 
in Long Island, the seeds become ripe ; they stand upon 
stalks of a red colour, at the end of which there are red 
cups, very much in the form of an ale-glass, and into the 
cups the small end of the berry, which is precisely of the 
shape of a hen's egg, and which is of a deep purple colour; 
into this red cup, of the shape of an ale 'glass, the small 
end of the purple egg just enters, and is apparently there 
held by nothing. The tree, at this season, is still more 
beautiful than in the spring, if you come near it; for, 
though it is generally loaded with seeds, these cannot be 
seen from a distance, like the flowers, which come out in 
the spring, while the leaves are very young and small. As 
soon as the berries become purple, they are ripe ; and, as 
soon as they are ripe, they are, if you wait one single day 
too long, devoured by the birds. 

497. It is very singular that so beautiful a tree should 
have so long continued to be so rare in England as it is. I 
never saw but two in England, one in Kew Gardens, and 
the other in a little garden which, when I saw it, belonged 
to the Dowager Lady Lonsdale, near the Banks of the 
Thames, in Fulham Parish. I first saw this tree about 
twenty years ago. 1 saw it again about five years back, 
and it was grown very much. After my return from Ame- 
rica, in 1819, I asked a nurseryman how he sold young 
Sassafras plants ? He told me that he had none, and that 
such a thing was not to be had under a guinea, or half-a- 
guinea at the least. I asked him why he did not import 
the seed from America ? and he told me that that was of 
no use, for that it could not be made to grow ; but that he 



The Sassafras. 

should like to get some of the plants. The tnitli is, that 
the few that there are in England (except those that I have 
raised from the seed) have been raised from suckers, 
coming from plants, originally brought from America. It 
was difficult to make me believe, that the seed would not 
grow in England ; and, therefore, as soon as I got some 
land, I began to import the seed; and, I sowed it, of 
course, but for years I never got any plants. 

498. This seed is a most curious thing. It has a pulp on 
the outside, within that pulp a thin shell, within that shell 
a plump fleshy kernel very large in proportion to the whole 
bulk of the berry. I, for want of looking into Miller, ex- 
pected such soft seeds to come up the first summer after 
they were sown ; and never seeing them come up, I, year 
after year, dug up the ground and sowed it with something 
else. Miller would have told me, that the seeds lie two 
years in the ground, and sometimes three years; in short, 
he would have told me all that I now know ; for, in the 
spring of the year 1826 1 sowed several small beds of these 
seeds. I resolved not to break them up the first year ; and 
last spring, they came up tolerably well ; and 1 have sold 
several hundreds of them this winter. Nurserymen have 
generally a strange aversion to the raising of trees from 
seeds ; and it appears that this aversion is hereditary, going 
down from father to son, and from master to apprentice ; 
for Miller, after teaching the mode of raising the trees 
from seeds, immediately tells us, that the general practice 
is to raise them from layers, which is very seldom attended 
with success ; and that, says he, is the reason, why this tree 
is so very rare in England. The truth is. Miller's book 
was too large : there was too much of it for a gentleman 
to read ; and as to gardeners, they were, in his time, as 
they are in these times, much too wise, and of a great deal 



The Sassafras. 

too much experience, to suffer themselves to be directed 
by books. 

499. One whole year therefore, you must wait for the 
seed coming up ; that is to say, if you sow it this spring, 
you must wait till next spring before you can see the plants 
come above ground ; and sometimes you must wait even 
another year in addition, soft as the seed is when it goes 
into the ground. There is doubtless something in the oil, 
or some other matter that is about it, which requires that 
length of time, to subdue its powers of preventing vege- 
tation. 

500. The young plants will attain the height of from five 
to seven inches the first summer ; and then, early in the 
month of November, they ought to be removed, with all 
possible care, into a nursery, the ground of which ought to 
be very good and made very fine, the manner of removal 
being the same as that directed for the Ash in paragraphs 
120, 121 and 122. In this nursery these plants ought to 
stand two or three years. If they lose their points in the 
seed-bed, as they are apt to do if there be sharp early frosts, 
you must cut the point back to the first live bud, and then 
the tree will shoot up again. They will not make much 
progress the first year ; for the wood is hard, and the plant 
of slow growth, while very young; but, when once it gets 
to be two or three feet high, it pushes on at a fair rate. ] 

501. Having stood in the nursery two or three years, the 
plants ought to be put in the spot where they are finally 
to grow. Great care must be taken in the removal 5 but if 
the work be well done, the plants are sure to grow. When 
the plants have stood two years, they may safely be cut down 
if you choose 3 and then, they will send up a shoot of two 

f 



T«E Sassafras. 



or three feet long the first year. If you wish to have the 
tree lofty, you must keep the lower side-shoots pruned off, 
in the manner directed for other deciduous trees, always 
cutting with a sharp knife and close to the trunk. If you 
plant in hedge-rows, or in shrubheries, and do not want the 
tree to attain any considerable height, the best way would 
be to cut off, within a foot or a foot and a half of the 
ground, this will bring out two or three stout shoots, these 
will become limbs in time, and you will have a low tree 
witli a wide spreading head. 

502. When once the tree- gets to be as big as your arm 
at the butt, it will begin to throw out suckers, especially 
if the lateral roots should be cut or torn by the plough or 
spade. These suckers, if they come up in the hedge-rows, 
may stand till they throw out suckers again ; and they will 
soon spread along a hedge-row of several hundred yards in 
length, yielding an immense quantity of that salubrious 
bark, the nature of wiiich is so precious as to cause it to 
be imported, and to be purchased and consumed, though 
loaded with a heavy duty. 

503. Now, our hedge-rows are generally filled witli all 
sorts of rubbish; Maple, Elm Stumps, Scrubby Oak 
Stumps, Elder Stumps, Brambles, Knee-holm, and vari- 
ous other good-for-nothing things, which are, at the same 
time, as unsightly as they are worthless. Any where near 
a good house, the Sassafras would make beautiful Hedge 
Rows. In clumps, in independent trees, upon lawns, in 
shrubberies, they would be singularly ornamental; covered 
with blossoms very early in the spring (not later than the 
20th March); loaded with fine bright leaves all the sum- 
mer, which leaves die in the fall of the brightest yellow 
colour ; this tree, uniting all these qualities, would, if it 



The Thorn (Black). 

were to become common, be really an ornament to tbe 
country ; and common it may be, if people will take the 
pains to send for the seed. I have sold the trees this year 
for a shilling a-piece ; next year, if I have good luck, I dare 
say 1 shall sell them for twenty or thirty shillings a hun- 
dred ; and, if I keep on my nursery affair, I should not 
wonder if I were to sell them the year after, for ten or 
fifteen shillings a hundred in the mean while, I am now 
about to sell some of the seed ; and therefore, other people 
may raise them if they will, at the rate perhaps of five for 
a penny. 



THIS THORSr (BIsACK). 

In Latin, Prunus Sylvestris. 

504. The botanical characters are : — The flower has a bell-shaped empale- 
mentof one leaf, cut into five parts ; it has five large roundish petals which 
spread open, aud are inserted in the enipalenient ; and froni twenty to 
thirty stamina which are nearly as long; as the petals, and are also inserted 
in the empalemeut, terminated by twin summits. It lias a. roundish Germen 
supporting a slender style crowned by an orbicular stigma. The Germen 
afterwards turns to a roundish fruit, enclosing a nut of the same form. 

505. The tree, or rather the bush, on the subject of 
^vhich I am now about to hope for the reader's attention, 
is pretty well known to most English people, who 
generally, perhaps, look upon it as something of little im- 
portance; but which is of real importance as to the two 
great purposes to which it is applied ; namely, the making 
of excellent hedges, and the making of excellent Port 
icine : in which last of its functions I shall consider it 
first. 

T 2 



The Thorn (Black). 

506. Every one knows that this is a Thorn of the Plum 
kind; that it bears very small black plums, which are 
called Sloes, which have served love-song poets, in all ages, 
with a simile whereby to describe the eyes of their beauties, 
as the snow has constantly served them wfth the means 
of attempting to do something like justice to the colour 
of their skins and the purity of their minds, and as the 
rose, has served to assist them in a description of the 
colour of their cheeks. 

507. These beauty-describing sloes, have a little plum- 
like pulp, which covers a little roundish stone, pretty 
narly as hard as iron, with a small kernel in the inside of it. 
This pulp, which I have eaten many times when I was a 
boy until my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth and 
my lips were pretty nearly glued together, is astringent 
beyond the powers of alum. The juice expressed from 
this pulp, is of a greenish black, and, mixed with water, in 
which a due proportion of logwood has been steeped, 
receiving, in addition, a sufficient proportion of cheap 
French brandy, makes the finest Port wine in the world, 
makes the whiskered bucks, while they are picking their 
teeth after dinner, smack their lips, observing that the wine 
is beautifully rough, and that they like " a dry wine that 
has a good ' body,' " 

508. It is not, however, as a fruit-tree thut I am here 
about to speak seriously to sensible people : it is of a bush, 
excellent for the making of hedges, and not less excellent 
for the making of walking sticks and swingles of flails. 
The Black Thorn blovv^s very early in the spring. It is a 
Plum, and it blows at the same time, or a very little earlier, 
than the Plums. It is a remarkable fact, that there is 
always, that is every year of our lives, a spell of cold and 



The Thorn (Black). 

angry weather, just at the time that this hardy little tree 
is in bloom. The country people call it the Black Thorn 
winter; and thus it has been called, I dare say, by all the 
inhabitants of this island, from generation to generation, for 
a thousand years. 

509. This Thorn is as hardy as the White Thorn ; its 
thorns are sharper and longer ; it grows as fast ; its wood 
is a great deal harder and more tough ; it throws out a 
great deal more in side-shoots 5 and it is, in every respect, 
better than the Hawthorn for the making of a Hedge. If 
I be asked, how it has happened, then, that the Hawthorn 
is constantly used for this purpose, and the Black Thorn 
never, or scarcely ever, I answer, that the reason is very 
clear ; namely, that a sack of the seed of the Hawthorn 
may, almost anywhere, be got for a shilling or half a crown 
at the most ; and that, to get a number of Black Thorn 
sloes, equal in number to the Hawthorn berries contained 
in a sack, would, in almost any part of the kingdom, cost 
live, ten, nay twenty pounds. 

510. The sloe is very large compared with the size of 
the Hawthorn berry ; you must get six sacks perhaps of 
the sloes to have a number equal to the berries contained 
in one sack 5 and six sacks of sices, except in very woody 
countries, would not be found perhaps in the half of a 
w^hole county. The tree, like other plums, is liable to 
blight. It seldom bears any considerable crop, and very 
frequently bears no fruit at all. It grows no where except 
in hedge-rows and coppices : in the former it is too much 
exposed to bear much fruit ; and in the latter, it is too 
much in the shade to bear any fruit at all. Hence it is, 
that, though all of us who have been born and bred in the 
country know that the Black Thorn is by far the best of 



Thk Thorn (Black). 

the two, we never heard of such a thing as the planting of 
a Black Thorn Hedge. 

511. As bushes, for the making of hedges, the Black 
Thorn is ahvays carefully laid by when hedge-rows and 
coppices are cut. These bushes will lay longer in a dead 
hedge without perishing than any other sort of stuff of 
which dead hedges are made. This Thorn w^ill thrive, and 
that vigorously too, in the veiy poorest of land* It sends up 
straighter shoots from the stem than the White Thorn 
does, and these shoots send out, from their very bottom, 
numerous and vigorous side-shoots, all armed with sharp 
thorns. The knots produced by these side-shoots are so 
thickly set, that, when the shoot is cut, whether it be little 
or big, it makes the most beautiful of all walking or riding 
sticks. The bark, which is precisely of the colour of the 
Horse Chesnut fruit, and as smooth and as bright, needs no 
polish ; and, ornamented by the numerous knots, the stick 
is the very prettiest that can be conceived. Little do the 
bucks, when they are drinking Port wine (good old rough 
Port), imagine, that, by possibility, the beautiful stick 
with which they are tapping the sole of their boot, while 
admiring their legs ; never does their philosophy carry 
them so far as to lead them to reflect, that, by possibility, 
for the " fine old Port," which has caused them so much 
pleasure, they are indebted to the very stick M'ith which 
they are caressing their admired Wellington boots! 

512. In some situations, it would not be difficult to obtain 
Black Thorn seed enough to plant a hedge of consider- 
able length ; and, at any rate, it may be done if any one 
will take the pains; and, therefore, I shall now proceed to 
state the manner of raising the plants. The seeds are not 
properly ripe until pretty late in the month of October, 



The Thorn (Black). 

They may be suffered to hang till they are dead ripe, pro- 
vided the boys do not find them out; for though, as we have 
seen, excellent in the making of Port wine, they are rather 
too astringent, too "rough,'' for the birds, whose tastes 
seem to differ from the lovers of " Good Old Fort." When 
ripe, they should be gathered ; mixed with dampish sand, 
kept turned in a cellar or a shed, until the month of Feb- 
ruary, and then sowed in beds in the manner directed in the 
case of the Ash^ 

513. Like the seed of the Plum, that of the Black Thorn 
comes up the first year; that is to say, if not sowed too late, 
and if kept in moist sand or earth until the time of sowing; 
and without these precautions. Plum-stones will lie a whole 
year before they begin to sprout, as Peach and Apricot 
stones will. If managed in the manner that I have here 
directed, the Black Thorn plants will be up in the month of 
May, and in the month of October afterwards, they will be 
from five to eight inches high. In the month of November, 
or in the next month of March, they ought to be removed 
into a nursery, being assorted and planted in the manner 
directed for the Hawthorn, paragraph 275; and as to the 
manner of putting them into hedges ; as to the age of the 
plants for this vrork, as to the season, and every thing else 
relating to it; the reader will first turn to paragraph 2/6, 
and after that to paragraphs 34 to 37 inclusive. 

514. As an ornamental shrub, or little tree, the Black 
Thorn is by no means equal in beauty to the Hawthorn ; 
neither the shape nor colour of the leaf is equal to that of 
the White Thorn nor is the leaf nearly so abundant; in 
proportion to the size of the tree. But, the Black Thorn 
comes into bloom a full month, if not six weeks, before the 
Hawthorn ; and it makes a very gay show, when scarcely 



The Tulip Tree. 



any blossoms have appeared, or any tree is in leaf. Clumps 
of Black Thorns, therefore, or independent plants of this 
kind, might be placed very advantageously in parks and 
lawns ; and, if managed well, even in shrubberies ; for 
they are in bloom much earlier than any other shrub. The 
plant has so many advantages over the Hawthorn, that 
it is impossible that it should not be cultivated, in many 
eases, in preference to the Hawthorn, were it not for 
the great difficulty of obtaining the seed in any considerable 
quantity. 

THE TVXilP TREE. 

In Latin Liriodendrum ; in French Tulipier, 

515. The botanical characters are : — The proper involucrum of the flower is 
composed of two angular leaves, which fall off ; the empalement is composed 
of three oblong plane leaves, like petals, which fall away. The flower is 
nearly of the bell-shape, and has six petals, which are obtuse, and channelled 
at their base ; the three outer fall off ; it has a great number of narrow 
stamina, which are inserted to the receptacle of the flower, having long 
narrow summits fastened to their side, and many germen disposed in a cone, 
having no style, crowned by a single globular stigma. The germen afterwards 
becomes scaly seeds, lying over each other, like the scales of fish, and form 
the resemblance of a cone. 

516. There is but one species of Tulip Tree; but that o??^, 
as the lioness said of her Cub, is a tree indeed. This tree, 
as an ornamental piece of vegetation, is certainly one of the 
finest in the world. The leaf is so large, formed with such 
singular elegance, is of so beautiful a green, preserves its 
freshness so admirably, dies of so delicate a colour, and is in 
such ample quantity on the tree; the flower, though not 

/ 



The Tulip Tree. 



beautiful as a flower, is so large, is in form so elegant, 
comes in such quantities, and invites the eye to so great a 
height ; the trunk of the tree is so straight, the limbs so 
evenly balanced upon it, their distribution is so regular, 
and, in short, the whole tree is so magnificent an object, 
that it is impossible for any one who has a taste for rural 
affairs not to desire to see this tree extensively planted in 
England. 

517. But, great as its merits are as an ornament even to 
the grandest of mansions and domains, its ornamental qua- 
lities are nothing compared with those which are presented 
to us in its divers qualities of utility. This tree delights in 
a light and moist soil. I have always seen it finest in 
little flats near to rivers or brooks. In such places it grows 
a great deal higher than in high or dry lands ; but it does 
not want rich lands, and there are numerous little valleys 
and dells, in divers parts even of Bagshot-heaJfch, where 
the water comes oozing out of the sides of the hills, and 
makes a sort of little swamp, and marshes, in which this 
tree, with a little draining of the swamp, and a good 
trenching of the land, would flourish exceedingly. But, in 
every Gentleman's estate of any considerable extent, there 
are more or less of rivulets of various widths ; and, on the 
sides of these rivulets, there are always frequently occurring, 
little flat parts, covered in flood times by the water ; and 
of course, very moist all the summer. In such places, 
and on the sides of rivulets and ditches in meadows, the 
Tulip Tree would flourish exceedingly. It does not like 
ground where the bottom is constantly water ; but where it 
is occasionally wet. Such a situation, however, is not 
absolutely necessary, for I have seen very fine Tulip Trees, 
from seventy to ninety feet high, growing on the side of a 
hill amongst rocks. In short, there is hardly any ground 



The Tulip Tree. 



where it will not attain a pretty good size ; but the situa- 
tions I have pointed out are the best. 

518. The height of this tree, when it arrives at perfec- 
tion, may be taken, upon an average, at a hundred feet. 
MicHAUX saw one which he judged to be one hundred and 
forty feet high ; and his son, who is now living at Paris, 
and who imports American tree seeds into France, after- 
wards verified the correctness of the estimate. Michaux 
measured this tree and found it twenty-two feet and a half 
in circumference, at five feet from the ground 3 that is to 
say, about seven feet three inches through. A plank might, 
I dare say, have been cut out of this tree, fifty feet in length 
and four feet in breadth at the smallest end. My corre- 
spondent sent me some Tulip-tree planks last year, one of 
which was fourteen feet long, and very nearly four feet 
wide at both ends , though these planks were not selected 
for their great dimensions, but were merely planks such as 
he promiscuously found in the timber-yards of New York, 
and sent to me as a sort of venture to see how they would 
sell. I sold the greater part, and kept the rest for my own 
use. In the whole lot, forty-seven planks, there was not to 
be seen a single knot, curl, or flaw. 

519. The wood, which is nearly of a Lemon colour, is 
made use of in America for various purposes, where light- 
ness, fine grain, and high polish, are all wanted. It is made 
use of particularly for coach-pannels, for which purpose it 
is carried from the Northern to the Southern parts of the 
United States. It makes beautiful bedsteads, butter churns, 
cheese vats, wooden bowds (of which 1 have one that will 
hold more than a bushel). The farmers choose it for eating 
and drinking troughs for cattle, which trwighs are cut out 
of a solid piece with a chisel. The wood receives a polish 



The Tulip Tree. 



equal to that of any wood; and I am told that a cabin of a 
small packet^ which goes on the Thames, from Westmin- 
ster Bridge upwards, made of this wood, sold by me to the 
proprietor of the packet, is deemed the most beautiful 
thing of the kind, that ever was seen, by those who have 
had an opportunity of seeing it. The colour of the wood 
appears to me, to be about half way between a lemon 
colour and a white. 1 have used some of it in making 
shelves for a dairy and dressers for a kitchen ; and, though 
not at all polished, I have never seen any thing of the kind 
so handsome. 

520. I should suppose, that this wood might be obtained 
at as little expense as that of any of the Poplars; it might 
be a little longer in coming to perfection; that is to say, in 
arriving at a size sufficient for large plank ; but a plank of 
it must be worth twenty platiks of Poplar of the same size, 
if not a hundred planks. It is a tree that grows very fast, 
and when raised from the seed goes erect, and does not 
send out limbs to any very great extent until it becomes 
nearly as lofty as the Plane. Generally speaking, it is not 
so large and lofty a tree as the Plane; but, flowers in- 
cluded, it certainly surpasses even that majestic tree in 
elegance and beauty. We have in England nothing but 
very imperfect specimens of this tree, though it has been 
known in England for pretty nearly a hundred years, and 
though there is scarcely any fine gentleman's seat in the 
kingdom on some part of which the tree is not to be found. 
Miller speaks of raising the trees from the seed, and says 
that he did it by means of artificial heat. But we gather 
from him, that raising from the seed was never practised to 
any considerable extent, and that the practice of raising 
from layers was, even in his day, the general practice. In 
order to have these layers, there must first be a tree grow- 



The Tulip Tree. 

ing in the nursery. The tree being cut down nearly to the 
ground^ sends out numerous shoots from the bottom. 
When these grow up to eight, ten or twelve feet high, they 
are pulled down, a chop is given to each, pretty near to the 
stump, and that enables you to lay the whole branch or 
bough upon the ground, to which it is firmly fastened by a 
peg, having a hook at the top of it. Then the little side- 
shoots of this branch are pinned down singly by smaller 
pegs, each shoot receiving a little cut towards the butt of it, 
pretty much in the manner that the cut is given to the 
layers of Carnations; then all the butts of these side-shoots 
are covered over with earth ; and, being kept moist by 
'watering or otherwise in the summer, they, in the course 
of a couple or three years, get roots. They are then cut off 
from the main shoot, one by one, trimmed up, and planted 
in a nursery, where they are, I suppose, cut down the next 
year, in order to obtain a straight shoot, which is to serve as 
a trunk. 

521. Every reader must at once perceive that a tree 
never can be obtained in this manner. It is a branch of a 
tree, and a branch of a tree it must remain, until it be big 
enough to be called a limb; and then, like every big limb, 
it will be continually throwing out side-shoots, to form 
limbs of a secondary size. A fair and straight trunk never 
does and never can come from it; and, of course, large and 
clear and beautiful plank never can be produced in this 
way. Therefore, to have the trees worth having, they 
must be raised from the seed ; and that seed must be ob- 
tained from America; for I have no idea that it ever can 
ripen under an English sun. It is, however, very easily 
obtained, very light for conveyance, very conveniently 
preserved, and attended with very little inconvenience in 
the sowing or the managing. 



The Tulip Tree. 



522. When the petals of the flower drop, they leave 
behind them a little sort of cone, coming out of the 
middle of the stem of the flower. This cone gets at last 
to be about two inches long, and about three quarters 
or an inch through. It is composed of scales, which are 
perfectly dry in the fall of the year, and easily rubbed to 
pieces by the hand. One of these scales very much re- 
sembles, in shape, the tongue of an ox, with a small part 
of the root remaining attached to the tongue. This scale 
is liiie a piece of thin, dead bark ; but, down nearly close to 
the root of it, there are two little cavities, in each of which, 
when the seed is good and well ripened, there is a little flat 
and oblong seed about half the size of the pith of a common 
oat. These seeds are covered by a very thick coat ; and it 
is so difficult to get them out of the scale, that it is neces- 
sary to sow scale and all, w^ithout making an attempt to 
get at the naked seeds. 

523. The manner of sowing the seeds is precisely that 
pointed out for the sowing of the Ash, for which see from 
paragraph 108 to paragraph 112, both inclusive. In that 
part of the work, I have been very circumstantial and 
minute relative to the manner of sowing; and I was so, for 
the purpose of saving myself the trouble of repetition, as 
well as for that of preventing the book from extending to 
an unnecessary bulk. But, as to the season of sowing, that 
must depend upon circumstances. The seed must always 
arrive from America some time in the winter. If sowed in 
the spring, and in April, or even in May, which I think is 
best, the plants will not come up until the month of May 
of the succeeding year ; but then all of them will come up 
that v/ill ever come at all. If you were to keep the seeds 
out of ground during the whole of the summer, and sow 
them in the month of October or November, a part would 



The Tulip Tree. 



come up the next spring; but it would be only a part. 
Therefore, the best way is to sow them in April or May, 
when you can do it, with very fine earth, and in the coni- 
pletest manner. 

524. Though the seeds will not come up during the 
summer, you must be very careful to keep the beds per- 
fectly free from weeds; for, if weeds were suffered to cover 
them, they would deprive the seeds of all moisture. The 
weeds must be taken out as soon as they appear, be- 
cause, if suffered to grow large, the pulling of them up 
makes great holes, disturbs the ground to a considerable 
depth, and, of course, tears up, exposes to the sun and 
wind, aud destroys the seeds. These directions are very 
necessary to be given, and to be impressed upon the reader; 
because we are very much prone to suffer to lie neglected, 
that portion of our ground which we know will bi'ing us 
nothing until the next year. This is being, to be sure, very 
inconsiderate; for the seed is going on under the ground, 
though it does not appear above it ; and it is just as reason- 
able to neglect to pay attention to trees in the seed-bed, 
because they do not as yet produce us timber or fruit. 

525. These trees come up with two oblong seed leaves, 
not very long, nor very broad, but too singular to be mis- 
taken for weeds. The weeds will start along with them; 
and these must be kept out of the bed with the greatest 
care during the whole of the summer. When the plants 
are all up, which will be in the month of June, the ground 
should be stirred between them shallowly by the means of 
a little hook ; for, having laid unmoved for a whole year, 
submitting alternately to the beatings of the rain and the , 
dryings of the sun, it will become very hard ; and, unless 
it be broken after the plants be up, they will not thrive 



Tm TuJ4P Tree. 



nearly so well. It would be good, just to break the ground 
all over the beds, in the month of March, with an iron- 
toothed rake, pushing the rake from you, and not drawing- 
it to you, and not taking more ground than an inch or two 
at a time. This would make the plants come up with 
greater ease, and come up stronger; but you must take 
care not to suffer the teeth of the rake to descend deep 
enough to disturb the seeds, the roots from which will all 
be now in motion, 

526. If the plants be well managed during the summer, 
they will be about four inches high in the month of October; 
for they make very little progress the first year. They 
should then be taken and put into a nursery, in the manner 
directed for the Ash in paragraphs from 120 to 122 inclusive; 
but, in this case, much greater care must be taken than 
is necessary to be taken in the case of the Ash. The plants 
are a great deal smaller, and therefore require to be put 
into the nursery by the hand, and in the most careful 
manner, taking care to make the earth very fine that you 
put about their roots, and taking care that they stand in 
the nursery precisely as deep in the ground as they stood 
in the seed-bed, and by no means any deeper. If the 
weather be very dry, just after they be put into the nursery, 
the plants ought to be watered, once at least. 

527. They should stand in the seed-bed two years at the 
least, and perhaps three, for it is a plant that does not 
grow very fast at first. While there, no weeds should be 
sufTered to appear, or at least none should be suffered to 
get out of their seed leaf. A careful hoeing should be 
given several times during the summer, but the hoe should 
be narrow, and great care should be taken not to bruise the 
stems of the plants ; for, if once bruised, the check given 



The Tulip Tree. 



to the growth is very great. This work ought to be per- 
formed, and in the same manner, in the nurseries of all 
other trees; but particularly in the nurseries of those trees 
which must go into the nursery when but of a very small 
size 3 and the Tulip Tree is one of those. 

528. In two or three years, the plants will attain the 
height of from two feet to three. Their side-shoots ought 
to be cut off at the bottom, to prevent their being too much 
loaded with leaf, and to encourage the growth of the stem 
or trunk. When they have stood in the nursery two or 
three years, they are at a proper age to be planted out. 
The planting out should be performed in the same manner 
as directed for the Ash, and as was before directed in 
paragraph 7^. The season for doing the work is Novem- 
ber or March; and let it be done when it may, the greatest 
possible care should be taken to keep the roots, during 
their transit from the nursery to the plantation, froai the 
sun and the wind. 

529. The Tulip Tree needs not to be cut down the 
year after being planted. It has a bushy root, transplants 
well, and it is not, in my opinion, a tree that it would be 
advantageous to cut down. If it were cut down, it would 
send up a new shoot; but I am not certain that it would 
send up a shoot to go on faster and better than the original 
one; because the root always strikes off at once; and be- 
cause there would be no want of a supply of sap during the 
first year. If, however, from any cause, the trees were to 
appear to be stagnant during the first year, they ought to 
be cut down as directed for the Ash; for a new shoot would 
certainly come, and it might be equal in all respects to the 
original shoot. In all cases where trees are cut down with 
the intention of bringing up a new shoot to form a tree , 



The Tulip Tree. 

great care should be taken that only one shoot be suffered 
to remain. There will be several of them come out, but 
all must be taken off except one, and that, too, during the 
first summer. During the next winter, the trees should be 
looked over, one by one. The shoot that has been left to go 
on to become a tree, will be found, ninety-nine times out 
of a hundred, to have come out of the stump, somewhere 
considerably below the cut; so that there will remain a 
piece of the old stump higher up than the lower end of the 
new shoot. This piece of old stump, if suffered to remain, 
would become a piece of dead wood, which the bark of the 
new shoot would never cover, and which would make the 
tree crooked at bottom. Therefore, now, during the next 
winter after the trees have been cut down, these stubs 
should be carefully taken off with a sharp knife, in a sloping 
direction, the slope ending at the top, just at the point 
where the new shoot has come out of the stump. By two 
year's growth, the new shoot will cover the cut completely 
over; it will place the new shoot perpendicularly upon the 
old stump or foundation of the tree, and no man will be 
able to perceive that there ever has been any cutting down 
at all. I have mentioned this operation under the head of 
other trees, but I repeat the mention of it here, and with 
greater minuteness than before, because it is an operation 
perfectly essential to the growth, the health, and the beauty 
of a tree that has been cut down. 

530. With regard to distances, in a plantation of Tulip 
Trees, we are first to consider that it is a tree calculated 
to produce nothing but timber, Poles of it would be a great 
deal better than those that come from the Poplars, or from 
the Firs; but we have things enough to produce poles ; 
and therefore we never can plant it for the purposes of 
underwood ; yet, as it must stand with distances sufficient 

u 



The Tulip Tree. 



to give room for its growth to a large size, there must be 
something else, if we make ivoods of it, to occupy the ground 
beneath it. Michaux tells us, that though the tree delights 
most in damp situations, he has seen it mingled amongst 
all other trees; and that he has sometimes seen it constitut- 
ing, exclusively, tracts of forest for many miles together, in- 
cluding hills as well a? dells ; so that we might plant it any 
where, only bearing in mind that low and damp situations 
are the best for this tree. 

531 . The ground for the plantation, ought, as in all other 
cases, to be prepared by good trenching, after the manner 
described in paragraphs from 15 to 21 inclusive, taking 
care to distinguish between the two methods there pointed 
out, and to follow that method which is calculated for the 
land which you have to plant in. The ground being pre- 
pared, the Tulip Thees ought to be placed in it in rows at 
eight feet apart, the plants at eight feet apart in the row; 
for the Tulip Tree does not spread like the Oak and many 
others. Between each two Tulip Trees, in their rows, 
you might plant in dry ground. Hazel or Birch as under- 
wood : and, besides these plants put into the Tulip Tree 
rows, you might have, between every two rows of Tulip 
Trees, tvvo rows of Hazel or of Birch; so that all the 
rows would stand at four feet apart, and all the plants at 
four feet apart in each row; and thus a coppice w^ould be 
going on and yielding its profits, \vhile the wood of the 
Tulip Trees would be towering up. If in wet or moist 
soil, the best underwood ^vould be the Birch. The Wil- 
low would be too unruly; it would spread about too much, 
and could not be profitably applied without being suffered 
to grow to a greater height and size than those at which the 
BiacH would become profitable. The Birch is a more 
trim thing, goes more upright than the Willow, aflfords 



The Tulip Tree. 

better shelter, and is more easily kept clean from weeds, 
and is better in every respect for this purpose. By the 
time that the coppice had been cut down the third time, 
the Tulip Trees, having been kept carefully pruned of their 
shoots, would have clear stems of a considerable length, 
and would cause so much shade and drip, as to render the 
coppice of little value for the future; but now there would 
be a icood amply to compensate you for the loss of the 
coppice. 

532. I must mention here, that which I omitted in for- 
mer articles, where I spoke of this method of planting a 
mixture of timber trees and underwoods ; and that is, that 
you must, when you have cut your coppice, carry off the 
produce on the backs of men, and not suffer wagons or 
carts to go into the plantation for that purpose. Carters 
have no more mercy on young trees than they have on flint 
stones, and never appear to think them of more value. I 
have seen, in the clearing of a coppice, thickly set with 
young Oaks that had come up from the acorn, more than 
a hundred of those Oaks trampled down by the horses, run 
over by the wheels, broken off, or torn in their bark, during 
the loading and carrying off of one single load of worth- 
less brush-wood, of so little value as for the bundles of 
it to be sold at five or six shillings the hundred ; and this is 
the general practice throughout the whole country, as far 
as my observation has gone. The produce of the coppice 
is put up in heaps here and there, and the wagon, which in 
this case is one of the most complete instruments of destruc- 
tion that ever was invented by man, goes about, first in one 
direction, then in another, destroying as it goes, and leaving 
behind it, where there is a thick plant of young Oaks and 
Ashes, ten times as much mischief as the produce of its 
loads brings good to the owner of the coppices. Even 

u2 



The Tclfp Tree. 



where there are no youug trees to destroy, the carting does 
incalculable injury to the underwood itself. To be sure, it 
ought to be done, and it generally is done before the stems 
of the underwood begin to throw out their new shoots. 
Xevertheless, the wheels of the wagon and the feet of the 
horses, do very great injury to those stems. They wound 
and bruise them ; they batter them about in such a way as 
frequently to cause them to die, and as always to weaken 
the growth of their shoots. The wagon, in a coppice of 
eight or ten acres, will make, perhaps, not less than fifty, 
and, more likely, a hundred turnings or half- turnings, if a 
wheel come in contact with a stem in such turn, it half 
grubs it up; or, at the very least, it destroys half its powers 
of future production; but where there are young trees 
left standing in the coppice intended to become timber, the 
havoc is absolutely frightful. Very careful people have the 
produce of theh* coppices backed out. as it is called in the 
country ; but few persons calculate the loss of the future, 
when a trifling saving is presented to them for the present. 

533. But, if a coppice be large, and of a square, or nearly 
of a square form, it is very tedious and expensive to carry 
all its produce to the outsides on the back; that produce 
being very bulky and heavy. Therefore, if the coppice or 
plantation be large, and not very long and narrow, so as to 
make the distance to the outsides of it short, there ought 
to be a road made in the coppice ; and but one road, by any 
means. This road should wind about with gentle turnings; 
turnings so gentle as to leave the carter no possible excuse 
for running over the young trees, or over the stems of the 
coppice wood. This road might so wind about, according 
to the shape or extent of the coppice, as to leave no where 
any very great distance for the stutF to be carried on backs. 
The road might come out and end where it began; and 



The Tulip Tree. 



though it would, perhap?, occupy a twentieth part of the 
ground of the coppice, it would he attended witli gain, 
even if it occupied a fifth or a sixth part ; for the trees 
would cover the road with their branches, and they might 
stand closer on the edge of the road, than generally through- 
out the coppice. During the ten years, or thereabouts, 
and every successive ten years between the cuttings of the 
coppice, a good produce of rough grass might be cut in 
the road, yielding not so much profit as so much of the 
coppice land to be sure, but yielding something at any rate, 
while the advantage of such roads for the purposes of sport- 
ing would be too obvious to need a particular description. 
While the coppice stuff remained low, here and there a bit 
of the road might be ploughed up and sowed with grain, 
particularly with buck wheat, which the hares and rabbits 
do not touch, for the entertainment of the pheasants ; a 
thing by no means to be left out of our consideration, since 
pheasants there will be, and men there will be who delight 
in the preserving of pheasants. To be sure, the poachers 
would be aware of these resorts, as well as the owners of 
the coppice ; but they are aware of all the resorts already : 
and besides, pheasants are by them destroyed in the night, 
and they do not roost in the roads. 

534. To return to the Tulip Trees : they are not apt to 
throw out stout side-shoots, unless raised from layers ; and 
in the woods of America they have clear trunks, without 
any pruning at all ; hut it is better to cut off the lower 
side-shoots than to suffer them to die off; and therefore 
that should be done in the manner directed for the Beech, 
in the latter part of paragraph 149. 

535. The Tultp Tree ought, like other deciduous trees, 
to be cut down in the winter, when it is fit for timber ; and 



The Tulip Tree. 



its stool and roots ought to be completely grubbed up, to 
make room for the planting of something, or the planting 
of other Tulip Trees ; for, though it will send shoots enough 
out of the stool, those shoots never become trees, and are of 
very little use. 

536. If Tulip Trees be intended for clumps, for avenues, 
or for independent trees, they must be fenced, and, in ail 
respects, treated in the manner so fully described in the case 
of the Plane, to which the reader will now please to refer. 

537. I cannot conclude this article without expressing 
my hope that some gentlemen in England will be induced 
toplantand to propagate this tree, not only for ornament, but 
for the sake of the timber, and, consequently, upon a con- 
siderable scale. The means are not at all expensive. The 
seeds are easily obtained in the States of New York, New 
Jersey, and Pennsylvania; they are as dry as so much 
chaff; they may be kept, if in a dry place, for almost any 
length of time, so as to suit the convenience of sowing ; 
and, that they are easily raised from the seed I have 
proved, having sold several thousands of the plants this 
year. But, if a man will not write a letter upon the sub- 
ject ; if he will not take the pains to have the seed brought 
over ; if he will not, with his own eyes, see the seed sown, 
and the plants, and the planting, and the pruning attended 
to; if he will not do these things, he cannot have the 
trees, for, as lo purchasing them of those who raise the 
trees from layers, each plant, to say nothing of its being a 
mere branch of a tree, will cost him five shillings, or half-a- 
crown at the least; whcnacoupleof dollars worth of seed from 
Pennsylvania or New York, would give him from ten to 
twenty thousand plants. If he will insist upon believing 
his gardener, who will have no scruple to tell him, that 



The Tqlip Tree. 



plants will no more come from those bits of dry, rubbishy 
bark than they would come out of saw-dust, and that he will 
be " bound to eat all the timber that ever comes out of 
them if he will persist in believing this, as I might have 
done if I had listened to a botanist of this description ; if 
he will be guided by his servant and not by his senses, he 
cannot have the trees, that is all. Every gardener thinks 
that every one who employs him, is, as far as relates to 
gardening, a natural-born fool. He will allow him to be, 
and indeed he will boast of his being, the greatest of 
orators, the greatest of generals, the most valiant of admi- 
rals, the most profoundly wise of lawgivers, the most 
heavenly of all heaven-born ministers, the most pious and 
learned of bishops, the most learned of all learned lawyers, 
and, if a physician, capable, almost, of raising the dead to 
life ; but that, in matters of gardening, he will insist that 
he is essentially a fool, and that he does not know, and 
ought not to know, any more about the raising of a tree, 
than he, the gardener, knows of any of the learned pro- 
fessions, a profound knowledge in which he is ready 
(with or without cause) to ascribe to his master. One 
of the consequences of this way of thinking is, that gar- 
deners, if the master be of a character that makes it perilous 
to flatly contradict him, hear, with very little interruption, 
all that he has to say, and all that he relates to them as 
having been said by others. They receive his directions 
very quietly, then go away, and pay no more attention to 
them than to the w^histling of the winds ; and as to hooks 
that may be put into their hands, if not written by a pro- 
fessed gardener by trade, they would laugh at the idea of 
any one supposing it possible that they can contain any 
thing worth looking at. If, therefore, those who wish to 
have Tulip Trees will not look to the sowing and to the 
subsequent work with their own eyes, their best way is to 
content themselves with the wish, and leave the grati- 



The Tupelo. 



fication to those who will insist upon the thing being done, 
and who will see it done themselves ; and no great matter 
either, for, perhaps, it would not take up one week altoge- 
ther, from the beginning to the end, to'superintend the whole 
of the work of a considerable plantation, from the sowing 
of the seed to the final planting out ; which I think I am 
warranted in saying, when / have been able to spare the time 
to see the thing frequently done as far as the raising of the 
plants. 

THE TUPIS^O. 

In Latin, Tupelo ; in French, Tupelo. 

r>38. The botanical characters are : — Calyx tubular, superior ; stamina 
inserted at the commencement of the tube; ovarium inferior ; one stigraated 
style generally single ; capsul or berry containing a single seed. 

539. This tree seems to have been wholly unknown to 
Miller. Michaux gave it the botanical name of Nyssa ; 
but it appears from him, that LiNNiEus never inserted it in 
his catalogue. There are three varieties of the Tupelo ; 
one is called simply the Tupelo, another the Sour Tupelo 
{Nyssa Copitata), the third is called the Large Tupelo 
{Nyssa Grandidentata), The two former are small trees 
compared to the last, which attains the height of seventy 
or eighty feet, with a trunk from a yard to four feet round 
at five feet from the earth. 

540. The wood of this tree is not of such value as to 
induce me to recommend it to be planted for profit. It 
appears from Michaux, as well as from what I have seen 
and heard cf it myself, to be of very little value ; but, in 
its form and its foliage, it is a singularly beautiful tree, and 
grows very fast. I have some plants now at Kensington 
more than a foot high, though sown only in April last. 



The Tupelo. 



541. The SEED of this tree is a berry in the shape of 
an egg, and of about the size of a small filbert. There is 
a pulp on the outside ; then comes a ribbed shelly and 
within that shell a kernel. I have received the seeds from 
America packed, or rather put into a barrel, mixed with 
dry sand. There is very great difficulty in obtaining the 
seeds, which arrive in the winter, and are sown in the spring. 
The plants come up very boldly early in June ; they are 
two or three inches high in a very short time, and have 
oblong seed leaves, which are more than an inch long. In 
October they are very fine plants, and in November, or in 
the ensuing month of March or April, they ought to be 
put into the nursery, in the manner directed for the Ash. 
A year is long enough for them to stand in the nursery, 
and they may then go to their final situation. In clumps, 
in independent trees, in lofty ornamental plantations, in 
avenues, the Large Tupelo would form a beautiful variety 
with the Planes, the Limes, the Tulip Trees, and other 
trees of ornament. The leaf is, as I said before, singularly 
beautiful, as is the bark of the tree, and particularly the 
bark of the twigs. 

542. As to the pruning, the cultivating of the ground, 
and other parts of the management, they may all be the 
same as has been directed in the case of the Tulip Tree. 
The rootof the Tupelo is bushy, and causes the plant to be 
removed without risk. With regard to the cutting down 
of the plant the year after it is planted out, I look upon the 
Tupelo as being entitled to just the same observations that 
I have made with regard to the Tulip Tree. 

543. The other two Tupelos are inferior in height and 
size to the great Tupelo. The common Tupelo rarely 
exceeds forty feet in height, and the Sour Tupelo does not 
rise quite so high ; but they are both of them trees of great 



The Walnut Tree. 



beauty, and particularly the Sour Tupelo, the leaves of 
which are from five to six inches long, are of a pale green 
at top, and whitish on the under side. The wood of the 
common Tupei.o is higlily esteemed for some few purposes, 
on account of its inaptitude to split. For this reason 
wooden bowls are sometimes made of it 5 various other 
things are made out of the wood, where it happens to be 
found in abundance, and to stand in the way of the farmer ; 
but this is upon a very limited scale, and I regard these trees 
solely as trees of ornament. 

TRS WAI.NUT. 

In Latin, Juglans ; in French, Noisetitr. 

544. The botanical characters are the same, in all respects, as those of the 
Hickory, >Nhich see in paras^raph 292. 

545. The English Walnut-Trek is too well known to 
need a particular description here ; but there are two dis- 
tinct varieties of the American Walnut, and both of them 
good as Ti.MBER Trees. I shall first speak of the man- 
ner of raising Walnut Trees generally, and then give an 
account of those of America. 

546. There are several different varieties of our English, 
or European, Walnut, which the botanists call Juglans 
Regia. These varieties, however, are distinguished only 
by the different size of the fruit, its different thickness of 
shell, and by the different qualities of the fruit. In out- 
ward appearances all the varieties are alike ; and there is 
no ditference, that I know of, in the wood of any of them. 

547. The Walnut-Tree is raised from the seed, and ow/y 
from the seed. The Walnuts, when rij)e, and ascertained 
to be sound, which may be done by putting them into 



The Walnut Tree. 



water, in the manner directed for the Beech, in paragraph 
145, should be made perfectly dry, and then preserved in 
dry sand, in the manner directed for the Beech, in paragraph 
145. They may be kept in this state until the month of 
March or April, when they must be sowed in beds formed in 
just the same manner as the beds are formed for the sowing 
of the Ash, to which I have so frequently referred that the 
reader will, by this time, remember the directions per- 
fectly well, I hope, without reference to the particular 
paragraph. 

548. But, as to the depth, that is different in this case ; 
for the Walnuts are large things and require comparatively 
a deep covering. They should be scattered upon the beds 
rather thinly ; and that being done, they should be patted 
down well into the ground with the back of the spade ; for, 
otherwise, heavy rains will lay them bare before they have 
struck root; or they will be moved by worms, which is 
pretty nearly as bad. Rooks and jackdaws will hook them 
out of the ground if they perceive them ; and if they have 
begun to open, they will split them with their beaks, and 
then peck out the kernel. I have seen them do this 
several times with my American Walnuts, which are 
much harder, and more closely put together, than the Wal- 
nuts of this country. Therefore, they should be fixed afe 
firmly in the ground as possible, before the earth be laid on 
them, and they should not be sowed too near to the edge of 
the beds, for fear of washing out by the rains. 

549. When they are well and firmly placed upon the 
beds, they should be covered with earth pretty nearly three 
inches deep, and the earth should be made very fine, level, 
and smooth, /fhey will come up very boldly in the month of 
June, they ought to be kept constantly clear of weeds dur- 



The Walnut Tree. 

ing the summer ; and if well managed they will be a foot 
and a half high in the month of October, that is to say the 
American Walnuts will, but the English Walnuts will 
not be so high. They would be very little higher if sowed 
in the fall, instead of the spring ; and they might be raked 
out of the ground, by various vermin, and particularly by 
mice ; the moles also might annoy them ; and the worms, 
together with the beatings of the rain and the heavings of 
the frost, would render success much more doubtful, than 
if the sowing took place in the spring. 

550. The seedling Walnut has a long big tap-root, of 
softish texture, and has few fibres attached to it, and those 
few not of any considerable length. It is a tree therefore, 
that is never to be moved without care. The American 
Walnuts have larger and longer tap-roots than the 
English Walnut. When the seedlings are removed from 
the seed-bed to the nursery, which they should be in the 
month of November, or March or April, the tap-root should 
be cut off to about eight inches in length ; and the plants, 
having been first sorted or sized, should be put into the 
nursery in the manner directed for the Ash, but with 
greater care. The earth should be made very fine about 
the root, which should be very firmly fixed in the ground 
by hand and foot, and, if the weather be dry at the time of 
performing this work, it would be good to give the plants 
a good watering in a couple of days after they have been 
planted out, taking care to let the ground be thoroughly 
dry upon the top before you water. 

551. These trees ought to stand in the nursery two years, 
because, they will require that time to get good root and 
to fit them for their final removal. When they are finally 
removed, you will find many side-roots to have come out 



The Walnut Tree. 



of the part of the tap which you left when you put the 
plants in the nursery. These roots must be pruned in the 
manner directed for those of the Ash, and the planting out 
must take place with all the precautions so strongly recom- 
mended in the removal of tap-rooted or evergreen trees. 

552. People do not make icoods of English Walnut 
trees ; but, when I have described the uses of the Ameri- 
can Walnut wood, the rapidity of the growth of the trees, 
and the focility of obtaining the seed, I think it will want 
little to convince an English planter, that wood of this sort 
of tree, is a subject very well worthy of attention. Our 
Walnut Tree seldom has a clear trunk of any considerable 
length, and it is the same with the American Walnut^ 
but, these trees throw out great limbs at about ten or 
fifteen feet from the ground, and spread over a large piece 
of ground. The American Walnuts are two in number; 
one is called the Black Walnut {Juglans Nigra) ; and 
the other the Butter-Nut {Juglans Cathartica). The seed 
of the first comes in a large round green shell, which 
contains a large round Walnut very deeply furrowed. 
The Butter-Nut comes in a green shell, in the shape 
of an egg, and about the size of a small common hen's 
egg ; and it contains a Walnut of nearly the same shape, 
but sharply pointed at the small end, and still more deeply 
furrowed than the former. 

553. The Black Walnut is, however, the finest tree, 
and is one of the finest trees in size, in height, in spread 
ofhead, andin leaf both of quantity and shape, that there is 
to be found in the world. Our English Walnut wood is 
very brittle stuff, and serves for very few purposes, that of 
making gun stocks being the principal. Some articles of 
furniture were formerly made of it ; but it is never used 



The Walnut Tree. 



now for that purpose, and never was fit for it. The BtACK 
Walnut of America is famous for its timber, and also for 
its immense size; and for the soundness and durability of 
its wood. I have frequently seen this tree sixty or seventy 
feet high, and so large round the trunk, that I should be 
afraid to say how large, if MrcHAux had not told us, that it 
is by no means rare to see them six or seven feet in diame- 
ter, at several feet from the ground. There is now at New 
York a part of a Black Walnut Tree trunk, which had 
been scooped out, and was used as a bar-room^ and after- 
wards as a grocer's shop, having a door and two windows 
in it. A little pamphlet published at New York, where 
this trunk is now exhibited, as serving for a parlour or 
dining-room, states the trunk to have been thirty-six feet 
round at the base ; and of course twelve feet through ; 
it states, that the height of the tree previous to branching 
was very great, and that the height to the tops of the 
branches was one hundred and twenty feet, and that the 
spi'ead of the branches was in proportion to the height. It 
further adds, that had the tree been sawed into inch boards 
at a saw mill, it would have yielded fifty thousand feet of 
board, worth, at the wholesale price, one thousand five 
hundred dollars, or about 350/. sterling. 

554. This however must be regarded as a singular in- 
stance of grandeur ; but it is quite common, even in the 
light lands of Long Island, to see this tree of immense size 
in the trunk, lofty in proportion, and extending its branches 
to a distance that strikes the beholder with wonder. Shade 
is a valuable thing in a hot country; and one of these trees 
very frequently forms a complete shade to a house and 
other buildings of a considerable size. 

555. But it is for its timber, after all; that this fine tree 



The Walnut Tree 



is so valuable as it is universally esteemed to be. The 
wood, after a short exposure to the air, assumes a dark 
shade, aud in time becomes darker than the oldest and 
darkest mahogany; and hence, certainly, it has derived 
the name of Black H^ahmt. This wood remains sound 
during a great length of time, even if exposed to the 
influence of heat and moisture. The proof of its great 
durability is, that farmers frequently use it for posts in the 
fences that surround their fields. It is very strong and very 
tenacious ; when thoroughly seasoned not liable to warp or 
split, and its grain is sufficiently fine and compact to admit 
of a beautiful polish, to which advantage it adds that of re- 
maining always secure from worms. The timber is used 
in the building of house?, in the making of gun stocks, and 
in the making of naves for wheels. Michaux says that this 
tree is excellently adapted to certain uses in naval architec- 
ture; that it affords, not only an abundance of knees, which 
are so much wanted in ship building ; but, that, it enters 
into the frame of the ship also. He says, that it is not 
attacked by sea worms in warm latitudes, as the Oak is ; 
he says that he has seen canoes of it, scooped out of a single 
trunk more than forty feet long. In comparing it with the 
European Walnut, he says, that the wood of the Black 
Walnut is more compact, heavier, and much stronger ; 
that it is susceptible of a finer polish, and that, it is not, like 
the European Walnut, liable to be injured by worms. He 
adds one indubitable proof of the high esteem in which the 
wood is held in the native country of the tree ; namely, 
that it has been spared by the farmers in America) and spare 
it, they would not, if they wanted the fire-wood that it 
contained, or the land that it grew on, unless they regarded 
the wood as of extraordinary value. 

556. As to the quickness of growth, as conij^ared with 



The Walnut Tree. 

that of our tree, I have seen instances enough to convince 
me that it will come to timber in half the time, and Michaux 
says that the two sorts having been planted at the same 
time and in the same soil, the Black Walnut has been 
observed to shoot more vigorously, and to grow in a given 
time to a greater height. On every account as a timber 
tree, this Walnut is far superior to the European, and it 
is not of fruit we are here talking. 

557. The Butter-Nut takes its \ailgar name from the cir- 
cumstance, that the nut yields an oily matter, which soon 
becomes " rancid,'' and that is obtained by the Indians, by 
pounding and boiling the nuts, and taking off the oily sub- 
stance which swims upon the surface, and "mixing it with 
their food !" These people must be nearly upon a level 
with the Cossacks in point of delicacy of taste at the table. 
To be sure, to give the name of Butter- Nut to a thing which 
produces a substance, the very smell of which is enough to 
drive people of common nerves out of the house; this is, to 
be sure, a monstrous misnomer; but names do a great deal 
in this world ; and I have really seen a great many people, 
that seemed to lick their lips at the hearing of the name of 
the Butter- Nut pronounced. The Black Walnut will yield 
to nothing but a very stout and heavy hammer ; and when 
you have got the kernel out, it is so oily and so rancid," 
that to eat half a dozen is sufficient to make any common 
person sick. 

558. It is not therefore trees to bear food that I am talking 
of ; and the Butter-Nut, except for the sake of variety as 
an ornamental tree, is not worthy of any great degree of 
attention : the tree is inferior in point of size, is slower of 
growth, and its wood is in quality vastly inferior ; though 
it also possesses the quality of long duration, and of being 



The Walnut Tree. 

free from the annoyance of worms : and is, therefore, fre- 
quently made use of as sleepers, which are placed immedi- 
ately on the ground, in the framing of houses and barns ; 
and its long resistance of alternate heat and moisture 
causes it to be esteemed for the posts and rails of rural 
fences, which is a certain proof of its possessing the quality 
of durability. 

559. As, however, all its good qualities are to be found 
in the Black Walnut, with none of its bad ones, the latter 
is the tree which we ought to cultivate. Of the manner 
of that cultivation I have spoken above ; and it now remains 
for me to offer my opinion with regard to the distances at 
which these trees ought to be planted, when intended to 
become a wood for the producing of timber. 

560. From what has been said about the prodigious 
spread of the head of this tree, it would be nonsense to 
think of planting them at less than thirty feet apart, with 
an intention of their standing to become large trees ; for, 
supposing the branches to extend only fifteen feet from the 
tree in every direction, the heads of the trees would then 
meet, and a Black Walnut tree will extend its branches 
much more widely than this. 

561. If planted, therefore, in rows thirty feet apart, and 
at thirty feet apart in the rows themselves, there would be 
room for six plants of Hazel or of Birch between each 
two Walnut Trees along the Walnut Tree rows, and for 
six rows of either Hazel or Birch, at four or five feet 
apart, between each two of the Walnut Tree rows. The 
coppice would go on in just the^ame manner as described 
in the case of the Tulip tree; and the Walnut Trees would 
go on rising by degrees; till the coppice were totally sub- 

X 



The WaLxNut Tree. 

dued by the shade, and until there were a beautiful wood to 
supply its place, as an object of profit. 

562. No tree when cut down after being planted, throws 
out a stronger and more vigorous shoot than the Black Wal- 
nut ; but this tree should not be cut down until the second 
year after being planted, because its root is rather shy, and 
does not become strong enough to send up a firm and long 
and vigorous shoot, when that root has stood only one year 
in the ground. These trees, therefore, should be cut down 
the second year after planting. Great care should be taken 
that none but one shoot be left to go up, and the pruning 
of the stem, to make that one shoot cover the cut at the 
bottom, should be even more carefully attended to than in 
the case of the Tulip tree. 

563. This tree, as was before observed, is prone to throw 
out large side-shoots, when young ; and, of course, to have 
great limbs at no very great distance from the ground. In 
a wood, it would be desirable to prevent this spreading too 
soon, and great care ought to be taken to prune ofi* the bot- 
tom side-shoots in time, with a sharp knife and a close and 
smooth cut; and to continue to do this as the tree mounts, 
until you have got a trunk of the length you wish to have. 

564. If the trees be intended to produce knees, then they 
may be suffered to spread much earlier. As independent 
trees, or three or four together standing in a clump, or in 
lines to form an avenue, you might have them according to 
your taste, with long trunks or short trunks; but the best 
taste, probably, would be to prune them up with a straight 
trunk to about forty feet high, or then let their heads 
spread till they meet. The avenue ought not to be less than 
forty feet wide, and at this distance from each other the 



The Walnut Tree. 

trees would form ai-oof over it, perfectly completed before 
they were sixty feet high. 

565. Of all the trees that I know any thing of, nothing 
equals the Black Walnut as a single tree. Its spread is 
immense. If pruned up to about ten or fifteen feet high, 
and then left to take its own course, its great spread, its 
load of fine leaves, the shade that it gives, its erect and 
bold attitude, and its defiance of the winds, make it one of 
the noblest objects that the eyes of man can behokl. When 
near to houses, it, in times of great heat, serves the family as 
a place to sit under during the intolerable ardour of the sun. 
The shade is so complete, and the lower branches, which 
are rather pendulous, reach so near to the ground with 
their points, that you are here sitting, not only completely 
out of the sun, and without a hot roof over you, but you 
have, at the same time, the advantage of every breath of 
air that is stirring. 

566. I remember, with feelings of singular delight, that, 
on the 11th of July, 1818, when the thermometer of Faren- 
HEiT was standing at more than a hundred degrees, I, 
sitting under the shade of a Black Walnut tree, wrote 
that letter (addressed to Mr. Tierney), which ought to 
have warned Mr. Peel and the Parliament of the great 
dangers of passing that Bill (for restoring cash payments 
without concomitants), which, however, they did, neverthe- 
less pass, in a year and a few days after that time ; and 
which Bill has caused, is now causing, and will still cause, 
calamities to this country, the extent of which no tongue 
nor pen can describe. 

56/. Thus I conclude niy observations, witli regai'd to 
this magnificent and useful tree, which J cannot take my 

x2 



The Willow. 

leave of, without expressing my hope that I shall live to see 
many persons making plantations of it in England. 



THS WILLOW. 

In Latin Salix ; in French Saule. 

568. The botauical characters are : — It has male and female flowers on 
separate plants ; the male flowers are disposed in one common oblong im- 
bricated katkin. The scales have each one oblong- spreading flower, which 
has no petal, but a cylindrical nectarious gland in the centre. It has two 
slender erect stamina, terminated by twin summits having four cells. The 
female flowers are disposed in katkins like the male ; these have neither 
petals nor stamina, but an oval narrowed gerraen, scarcely distinguishable 
from the style, crowned by two bifid erect stigmas. The germen afterwards 
becomes an awl-shaped capsule, with one cell opening with two valves, con- 
taining many small oval seeds crowned with hairy down. 

569. This tree is so common in England, and there are 
so many sorts of Willow, that to enter into a minute de- 
scription of each would be quite useless to any reader, and 
would take up more room and more time than any one but 
a mere Botanist would deem the subject worthy of. Miller 
has fourteen species of Willow, and chal-x has two : 
but as the mode of propagating, rearing, cultivating, and 
generally the mode of cutting down all the sorts is the same, 
one set of directions will, with few exceptions, seiTe for 
the whole, 

570. Willows may, if we please, of almost all the sorts, 
become considerable trees ; trees of a large tmnk and 
great height. The wood of some of the Willows is not 
bad, even as timber; but the general purposes to which the 
Willow is ajiplied, cause it to be regarded only as un- 



The Willow. 



(lervvood. There are two purposes to which it is applied, 
of a very distinct character : one, the making* of hop-poles, 
hoops, hurdles, and tool-handles; the other, the making of 
baskets and wicker-work of various descriptions. Tliose 
Willows which are applied to the former purpose are 
planted in coppices; those which are applied to the latter 
purpose, are planted in aquatic situations, which are gene- 
rally'called Osier-beds. The former are cut every eight or 
ten 'years, according to the growth of the stuiF, which will 
be in proportion in rapidity to the goodness of the ground ; 
the latter are cut every year, as soon as the leaf is off, and 
as the shoots are perfectly ripe. 

571. Willows are never raised from the seed, though 
they all might be; and though they would, if a large and 
straight and lofty tree were wanted, be raised most pro- 
perly in that way. The seed of the Willow, like that of 
the Poplar, is borne in a katkin, which comes out early in 
the spring, and which falls off from the tree, some of the 
sorts earlier and some later, in May, or early in June. If the 
katkins were then collected, laid in the sun until perfectly 
dry, and then rubbed out and sowed in the same manner as 
I have described, and as I have so successfully practised in 
the case of the Birch, any number of trees might be raised 
from the seed; and these trees properly transplanted and 
managed, would become straight, clear-trunked, and lofty 
trees; and this might, in some cases, be very desirable, for 
some of the sorts are greatly ornamental, besides the Weep- 
ing Willow, which is every where looked upon as an arti- 
cle of ornament. There is one Willow, the bark of which 
is of a light grey colour, which sends its katkins forth very 
early in the spring. They are large, clothed with a thick 
down, the outside of which is a bright yellow, after having 
first been white ; and, for the space of nearly a month, at 



The Willow. 



a season when there is scarcely any thing in vegetation to 
glad the eye, this tree is a very beautiful object; and it 
grows, too, in any ground, from a dry bank to a sour clay 
or a bog. 

572. I am, however, though reluctantly I must confess, 
compelled to give up the expectation of ever seeing or 
hearing of the Willow of any sort being raised in any other 
way than from poles, stakes, truncheons, or cuttings ; and, 
therefore, I shall now speak of the manner in which th^s is 
usually done, first taking the Willows which are usually 
planted in coppices. 

573. When the ground is ready for the planting of the 
coppice, you proceed in one of two ways ; planting by poles 
or by truncheons. The distances at which Willows should 
be planted, is in rows at five feet apart, and the plants at 
five feet apart in the rows. If you propagate by poles, you 
make lines across the piece of ground five feet apart, make 
a trifling channel with a spade or hoe along the line, then 
lay down Willow Poles in this channel, one following the 
other, length-ways all along the line; so that you now have 
a line formed of poles. Then cover the poles over with 
earth pretty thickly, except that you are to leave six or 
eight inches of the poles exposed in every five feet. So 
that now you have a little ridge of earth (not above an inch 
or two high) going from one side of the piece of ground to 
the other, with six or eight inches of pole visible at every 
five feet from each other. Then you make another line, 
and proceed to lay down poles, and to cover them in the 
same manner. This is the best, the surest, the quickest, 
and, in the end, the cheapest way of getting a Willow 
coppice. 



The Willow. 



574. Roots will come, or rather go, out of every part of 
the pole into the ground, and shoots will come upwards 
from those parts of the poles which are not covered. The 
whole pole becomes a main root or set of roots, and the 
little parts left uncovered become so many stems or stools, 
which will produce a crop, and a pretty large one too, 
several years sooner than you can get the first trifling crop 
from the truncheons. This work should be done in 
February or early in March, and a,s soon as convenient 
after the poles are cut. 

575. If you proceed by truncheons, that is to say, by 
Willow cuttings an inch through or thereabouts, or per- 
haps more, these should be about two feet long, and put 
into the ground at the distances above-mentioned. Both 
ends should be cut off smoothly with a sloping cut, and the 
butt end, of course, put into the ground ^ but not by thrust- 
ing dovs^n by main force, but by making a hole with some- 
thing else to the proper depth, and putting the truncheon 
down into it, and then treading round it and fixmg it well in 
the ground, as you would a young tree, leaving about three 
or four inches above the ground, 

576. This work is also to be done in Febmary or March. 
Several shoots will come out of each plant the first summer, 
but the whole of them except one should be taken off during 
the next winter, in order to give stoutness to the stem or 
trunk. During the next winter the stems are to be cut 
down to the ground, and then be sutfered to go on to 
become ^ coppice. This is a poor way of doing the thing 
compared to the other way, and here are two years lost into 
the bargain ; but the great obstacle is the first cost : the 
truncheons are worth little or nothing ; but the poles, espe- 
cially in hop countries, are worth forty or fifty shillings the 



The Willow. 

hundred. Tliere stands the hop-planter, hoUling out the 
fifty shillings; and this sight, this charming and tempting 
sight, soon overpowers that philosophy, which teaches the 
coppice-owner that he would gain the fifty shillings, ten 
times told, perhaps, by using the poles in the making of a 
new coppice. Nay (and this is a great deal worse) the 
planter may have to hiy the poles, while any neighbour 
will give him the truncheons, and it certainly requires a 
little less expense to put in the truncheons than to buy the 
poles. Faith ! here is a great deal more than sufficient to 
decide the question in favour of the truncheons, which thus 
become living and gay tenants of the coppice, instead of 
making their exit in the fiery furnace of a baker, or in the 
still more ardent flame of the lime-kiln. 

577* However, I did once see a man that raised a coppice 
fi'om Willow Poles, and it was worth, acre for acre, and 
at parallel age, four times as much as any other Willow 
coppice that I ever saw in my life. It was next to impos- 
sible to 'svork one's way through it. It was about seven 
years old ; it was fit then to cut for hoops and hurdles ; 
and I believe it sold by auction, the next year, for thirty- 
five pounds an acre, though the general run of coppices 
did not fetch, at that age, more than seven or eight pounds 
an acre; and, if I recollect rightly, the poles had been 
laid only about fourteen or fifteen years. But the trun- 
cheons could have been had for nothing, while these poles 
must have been worth forty or fifty shillings a hundred. 

578. These poles, however, need not be prime poles. 
They ought to be stout, but need not be of great length ; 
and, if a little crooked, it is of no great consequence. By 
lowering the earth in certain places, raising it in others, 
and with the iise of pegs to fasten down the ends of 



/ 



The Willow. 

them, poles not of the straightest description may do very 
well, 

579. There are several sorts of Willows, that grow pro- 
miscuously in the coppices. To give to these their botanical 
description would be perfectly useless ; but there are two 
sorts, which prevail greatly over all the rest, in the estima- 
tion of woodmen, and which indeed are the sorts that thrive 
best, and produce the greatest quantities of hoops and 
poles. They very much resemble each other in outward 
appearance, whether as to leaf, bark, and every other cir- 
cumstance, but which have a clear distinction in the colour 
of the wood ; one having a red heart, and the other being 
white all the way through. The White-hearted Willow 
is good for very little as a hop-pole, while the Red- 
hearted Willow will last nearly as long as the Ash. The 
difference in the qualities holds good in the making of 
hoops, hurdles, rods, and every thing else to which the 
wood of the dry land Willows is applied. 

680. The Willow, like other coppices, is cut in the 
winter, and the stuff converted to its various uses as quickly 
as possible. The coppice ought to be cleared by the be- 
ginning of March, and ought not to be begun to be cut 
until the whole of the leaf be completely off. If you begin 
cutting too soon, you injure both the crop and the stools; 
seeing that the sap has not wholly descended from the 
former, and seeing that the latter will bleed, and be thus 
deprived of parts of its powers of reproduction. 

581. Under the head of Tulip Tree, I have said enough 
about the horrible consequences of clearing coppices by 
the means of wagons and carts, and I beg to be understood 
as repeating here all that I there said on the subject ; 



The Willow. 

for it never can be too firmly fixed in the. mind of the 
reader. 

582. I have now to speak of aquatic Willows. All Willows 
will grow in watery places, but all Willows will not pro- 
duce rods and twigs wherewith to make baskets and wicker-; 
work, for some of them are as brittle as any other tree 
that I know any thing of. The Willow which is generally 
planted in watery places to produce rods which are called 
osiers, has a very long and pointed leaf, and a yellowish- 
coloured bark on the young shoots ; and this is the reason, 
I suppose, for this and some other Willows being called 
Sallows. There is another sort, with a broader leaf, and 
of a whitish hue in both leaf and bark of the young 
shoot, which grows faster than the former one, but it is 
coarser, and not so very pliant; but it is probably fitter than 
the former for large wicker-work. 

583. These things are planted, very fretjuently, almost in 
the water ; and they will not thrive well, or at least will 
not be productive for the purposes before-mentioned, unless 
the situation be very wet. Generally they are in water in 
flood times ; and half in water, that is to say, half the roots 
are in water at all times. The crop here is like a crop of 
grass, it comes every year. The rods are cut off close to 
the stem after the leaf has fallen and the wood has become 
ripened. The produce is tied up in bundles, and afterwards 
carried away to be sold to basket-makers and other persons 
who make wicker-work. This is a most useful plant 5 the 
produce is very great; and the good of the thing is, that 
any mere swamp is a good place to have the plantation in, 
unless, however, observe, the sea-water, or salt water, or 
water strongly impregnated with the sea-salt, have access 
to the swamp, for, let it be observed, that no tree will live 



The Willow. 

for any length of time in soil into which salt water can 
come. 

584. The manner of planting osier beds, as they are 
generally called, is this : — You take stout rods, which are 
cut for the making of baskets, and cut off the butt-ends of 
them. These butt-ends you plant in rows at four feet apart, 
and at two feet or a foot and a half in the row. Do not 
thrust these cuttings down into the ground, but make a 
bole to receive them j for, by thrusting down the cuttings, 
you run the risk of stripping up the bark from the butt of 
the cutting ; and it is the bark, and not the wood, out of 
which the roots are to grow. 

585. If the situation be such that there are occasional 
overflowings from a river or brook, the cuttings which 
ought to be about three feet long, and two feet of which 
ought to be put into the ground ; these cuttings ought, in 
such case, to be put in in a direction sloping towards the 
river or brook, which would tend to prevent them from 
retaining dead weeds, and grass, and leaves, which the 
water would cause to swim upon the surface. If the situ- 
ation be flat, and not liable to such inundations, it is better 
to put the cuttings into the ground perpendicularly. 

586. Several shoots will come out of each cutting the 
first year. The main shoot should be suffered to go up, 
but all the rest should be cut off during the next winter. 
By the winter after, there would be a stout stem with seve- 
ral shoots upon it. The shoots should be all cut off" then ; 
and after that, the stem itself should be cut down to within 
about three or four inches from the ground 3 not quite so 
low, perhaps, in situations that are very wet. After this, the 
crop becomes annual and regular. By frequent cuttings off 



The Willow. 



of the shoots or twigs, there comes a sort of head to the 
stem, and, in some cases, this head gets to be a foot over; 
and as shoots come from ahnost every part of it, the annual 
produce is prodigious. The grass and weeds will, in such 
situatious, rival the shoots in growth; and they ought to be 
cut off about Midsummer, tied up in bundles, and carried 
out of the osier-bed. The produce would probably pay for 
the labour; and they do a great deal of harm to the shoots, 
by keeping the lower parts of the large ones from the sun, 
and by greatly diminishing the length and even the number 
of the small ones. 

587. To have Wjllow Trees on the banks of rivers or 
brooks, the usual way is to put in stakes, from six to twelve 
feet long, and from three to five inches through at the 
bottom. Such stake, or rather pole, is put in in the month 
of February, or early in March, as soon as convenient 
after it has been cut. The bottom of the stake or pole 
should be cut off with a sloping cut, very smoothly, leaving 
no ragged parts either in wood or bark ; for these die and 
prevent the root from being sound. The point of the stake 
or pole should be cut off in the same manner. The stake 
or pole should be put into the ground by the means of an 
iron bar, or some pointed thing sufficiently large to make 
a hole suited to the bigness of the butt of the stake or pole. 
Then the ground should be well fastened round the butt. 
The stake or pole will strike root immediately, and all the 
part which is above ground will send out shoots during the 
summer, 

588. As you wish to have something of a clear trunk, you 
must prune off the side-shoots to the height at which you 
wish the head to begin. The head will then go on growing 
and spreading. If the tree be of the Sallow kind, you will. 



The Willow. 



of course, cut off the produce every year for the purposes of 
wicker-work; but if the tree be of any of the other kinds, 
the produce will befit for little else than fuel; but this pro- 
duce is very large, and a crop is yielded of good stout fire- 
wood about every six years; and, as Willows do little 
harm in meadows, and perhaps, no harm at all, the edges 
of rivers, brooks, and deep ditches, always ought to be well 
garnished with them. 

589. There is one sort of Willow, never seen in coppices 
or meadows ; but very well known to nurserymen and 
gardeners under the name of the Yellow Willow, a name 
exactly descriptive of the colour of the bark in every part of 
the tree. It throws out a great abundance of slender twigs, 
and these twigs, in summer as well as in winter, are as 
tough, as pliant, and as strong for any temporary purpose 
as any piece of common string or cord of the same thick- 
ness. You may take one of these twigs, tie a bundle up 
with it, and finish by making a bow, in the same manner 
as with tape, or with packing-thread. For this reason, 
there is no nursery, and scarcely any considerable garden, 
without one or two trees of this kind standing in some 
corner of the ground, for the purpose of affording a con- 
stant supply of twigs. 

590. There remains only to speak of the Weeping Wil* 
1.0W. It is the only Willow planted for ornament, and which 
is, indeed, good for very little else ; but as an ornamental 
tree it is surpassed by very few, adding to its fine colour 
and elegant disposition of its branches, the pleasing cir- 
cumstance of coming out in leaf amongst the very earliest 
of the trees in spring, and retaining its leaf in the autumn 
long after the leaves have all disappeared from the greater 
part of deciduous trees. But, though this tree may be 



The Willow. 



raised, by stakes or poles, in the manner before-mentioned, 
it can never be a fine and lofty tree if raised in that manner; 
and it would be absurd to expect it. This tree would grow 
to sixty feet high, if raised from the seed, and that it might 
be^ 1 am sure, in the manner which 1 have spoken of above; 
but if not raised from the seed, small cuttings at most 
ought to form the foundation of a Weeping Willow tree. 
These cuttings ought to be, like those of the osiers, from 
the butts of shoots of the former year. They ought to be 
put into a nursery to strike, putting about a foot of them 
into the ground, and leaving not more than an inch out of 
the ground. One shoot ought to be suffered to go up the 
first year. There ought to be careful prunings of the stub 
at the bottom; and, in the next spring or fall, the tree 
ought to be taken up, its roots pruned, and then it ought 
to be carefully planted upon the spot where it is intended 
to abide. Here it might be cut down again the first year 
after the planting, and a single shoot suffered again to go 
up ; but this shoot would be so long and so slender in the 
upper part of it, that, if left at full length, the tree w^ould 
become a curved thing at once. Therefore, it ought the 
next year to be cut down, within two feet of the point 
where it was cut down before, and another single shoot 
suffered to come out and to go on, as near to the last cut 
as possible; and thus you ought to proceed till you have got 
a trunk of the length that you wish to have it. Then the 
head may be suffered to spread away from the straight 
trunk in every direction. The side-shoots being kept con- 
stantly pruned off, all the little crooks made by the several 
cuttings would soon grow out, and would leave no trace 
of there ever having been any : the trunk would be straight 
and smooth from one end to the other. 

591. From all that has been said upon the subject of the 



The Willow. 



I' ' Willow, it is evident that it surpasses every thing else in 
value in watery situations; and it does not much care 
whether the water be running or stagnant. Any little dell 
that is kept constantly wet by the oosings out from tlie 
sides of a hiil, is admirably adapted for any of the Willows, 
and the crop which they produce is prodigious. As dry 
coppices, they are very good, and produce a greater crop 
of hoops and rods than either the Birch, the Hazel, or the 
Ash. I have seen one single red-hearted Willow stem, that 
produced upwards of two hundred hoops, each rod being 
split into two hoops. But there must be room for this, 
and the Willow should not be planted in good ground at 
distances less than rows at six feet apart, and plants at six 
feet apart in the row; and, in such ground, the poles men- 
tioned in the former part of this article should be laid in 
rows, at six feet apart instead of five, and the lower parts, 
for the shoots to come out of, should also be at six feet apart. 
The quality of the Willow, for rods, hoops, and poles, is 
Inferior to the Hazel; but it is equal to the Birch ; and 
the red-hearted Willow makes a much better pole than 
the Birch. In very dry ground, the Willow does not 
succeed. It makes short shoots in such ground, sends out 
laterals instead of going up, and seldom produces much 
besides fire-wood. 

592. I cannot refrain from adding here, that I have now 
(March, 1828) several Willows, which have been raised 
Jrom the seed, this year, in my garden. They get to be 
four feet high the fii'st summer. 



In Latin, Taxus ; in French, If. 

• 593. The botanical characters are :— The male flowers are produced on 
separate trees from the fruit for the most part ; they have neither empale- 
ment nor petals ; but the gem is like a four-leaved cover ; they have a great 
number of stamina which are joined at the bottom in a column longer than 
the gem, terminated by depressed summits, having obtuse borders and eight 
points, opening on each side of their base, casting their farina. The female 
flowers are like the male ; having no impalements or petals, but having an 
oval acute-pointed germen, but no style, crowned by an obtuse stigma. 
The germen afterwards becomes a berry lengthened from the receptacle, 
globular at the top, and covered by a proper coat at bottom, open at the top, 
full of juice, and of a red colour ; but as it dries, wastes away, including 
one oblong oval seed, the top of which, without the belly, is prominent. 

594. " Though last not least", to use a saying that has 
been more than worn out for these last five hundred years. 
This is our native English Cedar. Its outward appear- 
ances are well known to us all ; for, first or last, the most of 
us have seen a church-yard, however few, comparatively, 
may have been within the church, and there is scarcely a 
church-yard in England that does not present a Yew tree 
to the eyes of the beholder. The Yew tree sometimes 
rises to the height of forty or fifty feet, and would go a 
great deal higher if attention were paid in the pruning the 
side-shoots as the tree increases in height. It is frequently 
a very large tree. I have seen several, each of which has 
been more than fifteen feet round the trunk ; and as I men- 
tioned in a Rural Ride performed in the month of August, 
1823, I measured the Yew Tree in the church-yard of the 
village of Selborne, in Hampshire, which was, at some 
distance from the ground, twenty-three feet and eight inches 



The Yew. 



in circumference. I bad not the means of making a very 
exact measurement ; hut, my error could not be very great ; 
and this is a monstrous circumference. 

595. The Yev^^ Tree attains an age beyond the possi- 
bility of human ascertainment, unless some national record 
were kept of the matter. Its growth is slow; but it ap- 
pears never to lose any part of that which it gains. The 
wood surpasses, very far indeed, all other English wood, in 
point of durability, and of strength, and elasticity joined to 
both these. It has a red heart, lik« the imperishable Red 
Cedar of America 5 but it is not odoriferous like the wood 
of the Red Cedar ; and it is very heavy, while the Red 
Cedar is very light. The wood never perishes, or, at least, 
so say the country people. Gate-posts are sometimes 
made of it, and they have never been known to rot. It is 
very fine-grained and receives a very high polish. I have 
seen a kitchen dresser made of it, which being kept in good 
order, was as shining as any piece of furniture I ever saw. 
It is super-excellent for making the bows of the backs of 
wooden chairs ; for making ox-bows, and, it is said, the 
bows, used by warriors formerly in this country, were made 
of this wood. Even the slender shoots of it are as tough, 
or tougher, than those of the Hickory ; and when they 
happen to get any considerable length, they become whip- 
handles, and other things, where great toughness and elas- 
ticity are required. I made a mistake in the article relating 
to the Elder, paragraph 222, where 1 should have said, 
" An Elder stake and a Yew hether,'* instead of an Elder 
stake and a Hazel hether, that would " make a hedge to 
last for ever." 

596. The Yew appears to grow pretty nearly equally 
well upon all sorts of land, shallow or deep, dry or wet ; 

Y 



The Yew. 



but it seems^ from the frequency of our finding it on such 
land^ to have been formerly, at any rate, grown principally 
upon chalky land. It resists all weather, stands uninjured 
on the bleakest of hills, where even the scrubbiest of thorns 
and underwood will hardly live. Big as the head of this 
tree generally is in proportion to its trunk, most heavily 
laden as it constantly is with leaf; forming as it does, such 
a hold for the wind, neither head nor trunk ever flinches, 
though in situations where it would be impossible to make 
an Oak grow, and where no other large tree could be pre- 
vented from being blown out of the ground. 

597. The Yew is, or rather has been (for it is not much 
the fashion now), used for making hedges, as screens in 
and near gardens and round about houses, for which pur- 
pose it is the best material that can possibly be conceived. 
It is easily clipped into any form ; its twigs are delicate and 
tough ; it can be shaved close down to the ground; and it 
makes a fence or screen through which no wind can find 
its way ; and being ever-green, it is very valuable on this 
account. People had more patience and diligence formerly 
than they have now ; and, therefore, I have never heard of 
the planting of a Yew hedge in the whole course of my life. 
There are many, however, still remaining in England, but 
these have all descended to us from our ancestors, who 
lived in those dark ages, when men were foolish enough 
to think that patience ought to be required in the acqui- 
sition of things of great value, and that large estates ought 
not to be acquired in a few years by merely " watching the 
turn of the market/' There is a hedge of this sort at 
Petworth, in Sussex, which, if I recollect rightly, 1 judged 
to be eleven feet wide, kept very closely and neatly clipped 
all across the top, and on the sides, from the top to the bot- 
tom. The bottom on one side of the hedge meets the top 
of a wall which supports a bank against a road or street. I 



The Yew. 



was quite as much delighted with this object, as I was with 
the house and park of Lord Egremont, the gate that opens 
to which, is not more than two hundred yards distance 
from this hedge. 

598. The SEEDS of the Yew ought to be gathered when 
they are ripe, which is Lite in October, or early in Novem- 
ber; and if they be sown immediately, in beds prepared 
like those pointed out for the Ash, they will come up the 
first year; but, perhaps, the better way would be, to pre- 
serve them in the manner directed for the seeds of the 
Hawthorn, in paragraph 273, and then to sow them in any 
of the months between November aud March, or in March 
of the second year. The plants will come up in the month 
of May, and then they are to be treated in precisely the same 
manner as that pointed out for the treatment of the Red 
Cedar. See paragraph 171 , see also, and pay particular 
attention to, paragraph 215 ; for unless you take the pre- 
cautions there pointed out, you will fail in the raising of 
Yew Trees. 

• 

599. If Yew Trees are to form hedges, they should be 
planted in two rows, the rows at two feet apart, the plants 
at two feet apart in the row, and the plants in one row 
standing opposite the middle of the intervals of the plants 
in the other row. The year after planting, they might be 
cut down to within a foot of the ground, or lowers for the 
Yew will throw out new shoots. Prominent branches 
must be cut off, the lateral shoots trained along horizon- 
tally, and the lower ones close to the ground. In a few 
years, the trees in the two rows would interweave their 
branches. The clipping with the shears should be begun 
in a few years; and you may suffer the hedge to become 
as wide and as high as you please, by always leaving 



The Yew. 



a small part of the new growth not taken off by the 
shears. 

600. As to the planting of woods of Yew Trees, few per- 
sons would think of such a thing; but it might be very 
conveniently and cheaply done, by raising the plants as 
above-directed, and by making them form part of a cop- 
pice, in precisely the same manner, and at the same dis- 
tance, as directed for the Tulip Tree. 

601. I have heard, and I believe, that Yew-leaves, or 
boughs, if, when a little withered, eaten by cattle or sheep, 
will kill them, and nearly instantly. Doubtless there was 
some old rule, relative to the poisonousness of the Yew, to 
induce the witches, in Macbeth, to make its " slips " part 
of the ingredients of their deadly cauldron. Horses, 
horn-cattle, and sheep, should not, therefore, be put into 
places where Yew trees, or hedges, have been recently 
clipped or trimmed up. 



THE END. 



INDEX. 



The figures refer to the number of the paragraph. 



Abele. See Poplar, 480 
Acacia. See Locust, 322 
Alder, 93 
Ash, 102 

Aspen. See Poplar, 482 
Bass-Wood. See Lime, 321 
Beech, 143 
Birch, 152 

Button- Wood. See Plane, 464 
Butter-Nut. See Walnut, 552 
Cedar (Red), 167 
Cedar (White), 1/3 
Cherry, 177 
Chesnut, 190 
Chesnut (Horse), 202 
Cob-Nut. See Hazel, 281 
Crab, 203 
Cypress, 209 
Dogwood, 2J6 • 
Elder, 221 
Elm, 227 

Filbert. See Hazel, 281 
Fir, 243 
Gum-Tree, 265 
Hawthorn, 271 
Hazel, 280 
Hickory, 292 



Holly, 300 — 
Hornbeam, 306 
Iron-Wood. See Hornbeam. 

Larch, 311 
Lime, 314 
Locust, 322 
Locust (Honey), 393 
Maple, 399 
Mountain-Ash, 414 
Nut. See Hazel, 281 
Oak, 419 

Pine. See Fir, 245 
Persimon, 454 
Plane, 461 
Poplar, 4/8 
Sassafras, 489 
Spruce. See Fir, 260 
Sycamore. See Maple, 400 
Thorn (Black), 504 
Thorn (White). SeeH.\WTH0RN, 
271. 

Tulip-Tree, 515 
Tupelo, 538 
Walnut, 544 
Willow, 568 
Yew, 593 



AMERICAN TREE AND SHRUB SEEDS. 



I now offer these Seeds for sale. I propose to put complete assort- 
ments of the seeds up in boxes, and to sell each box for Five Pounds. 
There will be in the Avhole upwards of fifty different sorts of seeds of 
Trees and Shrubs ; to which will be added about twenty sorts of Gar- 
den Seeds. Amongst the tree seeds will be Walnuts^ Hiekory Nuts^ seeds 
of the Sassafras, of the Birch, of the Plane, of the Red Cedar, of theAIaple, 
of the Tulip, of the fFhite Elm, and amongst the shrubs, seeds of the Pinck- 
neya (Georgia Bark), the Comus Florida, the Kalmia Latifolia, the Kalmia 
Angmtifolia, the Spice tree, (laurus benzoin), the Magnolia Glauca, the 
Magnolia Tripetula, the Magnolia Grandijiora. I have mentioned the above, 
also, as part of the trees and shrubs. I shall put into each box, two pounds 
of fin^ American Locust Seed. These two pounils contain about twenty-four 
thousand seeds ; and, if the instructions which I have given in the Wood- 
lands" be strictly adhered to, in the sowing of these seeds, almost every 
seed will propuce a tree; and a tree too, fit to go into a plantation next au- 
tumn. 

Amongst the garden seeds, there will be several sorts of Squash or Vegeta- 
hie Marroiv seeds ; two sorts of Melon seeds, one at least of Cucumber seeds, 
and a pint of three different sorts (a pint of each) of Kidney beans ; besides 
which there will be three sorts of Onion seeds, and Asparagus seeds. 

I forgot to mention one sort of seed, a small quantity of which is worth 
more than the whole five pounds ; namely, the SEED of the SASSAFRAS, 
which no man in England ever possessed but myself. There is also the 
Pinckneya or Georgia Bark, which never has been in England before, except 
last year, when I sowed some of it, and reared a great number of plants. 

There is some seed of the finest Beets in, such as produce roots far supe- 
rior to any that I ever saw in England. There are several varieties of the 
early Indian corn ; some white and some yellow. 

Now, that part of these seeds which I shall sow, I shall make grow ; and 
any other person may do the same if he will, by referring to the instruc- 
tions contained in the "WOODLANDS." I shall, into each box of seeds, 
put a catalogue of its contents ; and opposite the name of any tree or 
shrub mentiontd in the Woodlands, 1 shall say, *' See Woodlands." For 
instance, opposite to the seed of the BmcH, 1 shall say, See the Wood- 
lands, paragraph 153." Then, when I come to that rare plant, the Pinck- 
neya, or Georgia Bark, or to the Kalmia, I shall say also, " See the Wood- 
lands, paragraph 153;" because all these seeds are to be sown and ma- 
naged just in the same way as is directed for the Birch, the proceedings in 
the sowing of which, are the most curious that can possibly be conceived. If 
I had never done any thing in my life but rendered it an easy matter to raise 
the Birch from seed, which neither Miller nor any other gardener ever ac- 
complished, 1 should deserve the thanks of every body who is fond of trees. 
Till 1 made my experiments, with regard to the tender seeds of the Birch, I 
sowed not only that seed, but the seed of the Georgia Bark, the Kalmia, 
the AzALiA, the Rhododendron, and many others, in vain. Having made 
this discovery with regard to the Birch, there was no longer any difficulty 
with regard to any of these, which, as experienced gardeners well know, are 
never to be got from seed, but by mere luck. 



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